The Last of Us: Goodbye Blue Sky
by Jack Spheniscidae Enterprises
Summary: An anthology of stories set in The Last of Us universe.
1. The Clearing of the Clouds

**This fanfic will be not a continuous story, but rather a collection of different vignettes in the same world. Connections between each story will be loose at best, and not all may tie into the game, but we at JSE will do our best to maintain the quality for each one. With this series, we want to try our hand at writing different types of stories within the same universe. Some stories will be grim and nihilistic, while others will be more optimistic and heartwarming in tone. The writing style will shift, as well. There might be a script or poem tossed in amongst the mix. So why don't we start and see how this experiment goes?**

**We will attempt to update with at least one story per month. **

* * *

The girl breathes in a silent, yet bountiful gulp of air. Her heart beats rapidly, assault rifle firing away in her chest. Beads of desperate, tensed sweat flow down her forehead. Her brown hair has been messily strewn about, strands dangling like lights hanging from the ceiling. Lights that may very well go dark, leave a house dead forever, if she doesn't play what little cards she has right. The maniac warned her that escape was futile, that this was his town she was playing in. But she still clung onto the hope that she could make it out alive. Even if it meant fighting her way out from the belly of the lion's den, through the merciless blow of an unfeeling act of nature, armed with nothing but a pocketknife and a steadily dwindling supply of revolver ammunition.

She could have made it. Her hopes had swelled to astronomical proportions, anxious as it was, as she had made her way through the town. As she trudged her way through the insurmountable gauntlet, eluding or dispatching the devil-men who sought warm veins and flesh to chew, the girl had focused on hope to push her through the challenges. To prevent herself from curling up and waiting for the monsters to come to her as she so easily could have done in her many, yet few years of life. So many times she could have done so. Curl up and die when her best friend was taken from her mere weeks before she began on this life-changing journey with the man. Curl up and die when the man had injured himself and she didn't know what to do. But she never did, despite all the chances she had at taking the easy way off this unkind, dark world. Hope to see the man, closest thing she ever had to a father, again. Hope to reach the fabled light at the end of the tunnel, the yellowjacketed guerillas spoken of in hushed whispers in the caged cities. Hope that all they had been through, everything she had done, would not be for nothing.

But her hopes nearly shattered, precariously teetering on the edge of the skyscraper over a sea of nothingness, when she had reached for the door that led out of the restaurant. The maniac had somehow found her, and he had knocked her gun away from her grasp. She had managed to fight her way out of his lecherous hands, but she knew that there was no chance of escaping. The disturbed journey that she and the maniac had taken since they first locked eyes in that wintry expanse would end here. But it wouldn't be easy. He was armed and much more experienced than her. Like her protector the man, he knew everything he was doing. Perhaps even better. All she had was a mere pocketknife now. And to compound matters, the maniac had set the restaurant ablaze. Dawdle too long, and the flames would consume them both.

Two times she had done it already, sneak up on him and plunge her blade deep into his flesh. Plunged it in as deep as she could. She knew that the second stab should have killed him. But the maniac showed no signs of relent, no weakening. With a sickening chill running along her shivering spine, she knew that like her, the maniac was driven by hopes. Hopes that held no pleasantness, only despair, for her. How many times will they have to play this sick game, cat and mouse, before one of them keels over? She creeps around the abandoned diner, carefully navigating over broken dishes lest she give herself away. He's started to hide, hoping to catch her by surprise, knowing that his loud footsteps give his location away. Hoping that she'll fall of the edge, lose herself to fear and pressure.

He taunts her, sounding more and more deranged with each falling grain of sand. The girl remembers that she bit the maniac earlier. Could the infection be spreading through his veins, consuming cells, as he stalks her right now? Run, little rabbit, run! He calls out from somewhere in the dinner. She leans against one of the dining booths, focusing her ears. She creeps slowly, past fallen bottles and decayed relics of an abandoned world. Her breath is cold, still in the burning world. She nears the kitchen. The girl cautiously crouches against the outside wall, peeking over one of the windows so delicately narrow in her manner. As she suspected, the maniac is crouched behind one of the grills, machete firmly gripped. He's cooing for her to come to him, to give up in exchange for an easy release.

She waits until his head is turned the other direction. The girl rounds the corner, into the heart of the lion's den. The maniac's back is to her. Maybe she's only imagining things, or is the lunatic giggling now. Taking one final desperate breath, she lunges and plunges her pocketknife into the front of his shoulder. He moans in agony, but to her horror he's choosing to go down like a bull. With ferocious strength, even with the blood dribbling down the tears and holes her blade has left in him, he tussles about while she grips him, trying to pull her knife all the way to his twisted heart. She gasps as he stumbles back and slams her against the edge of a table. Her spine feels as if it shall crack in two. For a few more tormenting seconds, as her body convulses with the pain of the impact, the maniac finally succeeds in breaking her grasp and he slams her down to the ground. Before he himself collapses, wounds taking effect at long last.

The world goes dark. All is quiet in the diner except for the gentle rustle of falling snow and the growling hunger of the widening pyre. The two bodies, the girl and the maniac, lie still. Unaware of the calamity that is brewing in the world around them. The screaming women, frantically ferrying their cannibal next-of-kin to shelter. The cries of the dying as the bullet of a rifle flies through their eye or as a hatchet presses deep into their throat. The man has awoken from his sleep. He comes for the girl. And he won't let anyone take his precious little girl from him ever again.

When the girl wakes, she doesn't know how long she has been out. All she is aware of is the dim glow of the intense fire a mere walk from where she is. The faint dash of white snow falling down onto her bare forehead. She doesn't know where the maniac has gone, or if he is even still alive. But she knows that it is only a matter of time before the flames consume what is left of the diner, and an even quicker matter when the remainder of the maniac's clan spot the flames and piece together the puzzle. It will be no easy solution to this logarithm, getting out of this snow-covered hell. Even as she pushes herself over, onto her knees, the slightest movement feels as if it needs the strength to climb mountains. In a brief glint, the girl sees fallen in front of her the machete. Could it be? Is her tormentor at last gone to meet whatever lies beyond? Groaning, the girl gathers all the strength she has. Fire fuels her muscles as she pushes herself slowly but surely to the blade. The girl crawls determinedly, ignoring the wailing cries in her joints with each inch she makes. She breathes heavily, grateful for each gulp of oxygen that rushes into her lungs. Each second that she remains alive.

Without looking, she can hear the footsteps approaching. Sharply tuned, the girl instantly distinguishes the footfalls of the enemy from friend. She's still too weakened from their earlier battle to do anything in time to stop the grunt of her tormentor as he drives as he drives the hard tip of his boot into her weakened body. Crying lightly, she falls flat to the ground. He laughs lightly.

I knew you had heart.  
Y'know, it's okay to give up.  
Ain't no shame in it.

The girl, both frightened and angered by his words, does not reply. The maniac doesn't deserve her time, the pathetic, cruel motherfucker he is. With mere seconds to catch her breath, fighting against a body that wishes to comply with his words, the girl pushes herself up and continues making her way forward.

With another laugh that almost sounds like acceptance, he speaks again. I guess not. Just not your style, is it? He kicks her again, this time in the ribs. Despite her attempt not to, she cries out lightly as the pain spasms throughout her entire feeling. The maniac must enjoy this. And before the horror can dawn upon her, the maniac is moving over her, bending his knees. He wants to make her see the futility of further defying him. He clamps strong hands, surging with raw strength, onto her.

You can try beggin'. He says to her, almost fatherly in his way of dispensing advice.  
Fuck you. She may die, but she won't give him the satisfaction.  
He angrily pushes her over, their eyes locked. His hands move to her neck, slowly adding more squeeze with each second that passes. To her revulsion, she feels another part of the maniac touching her. No, not just touching. Something wicked and ghastly pressing hard, throbbing, against her thigh. The hate in his voice is coarse and weighty.  
You think you know me?  
Huh?

Blindly, she flails her hand behind her. Trying to grasp the machete or anything that she can use to defend herself. Even as his hands start to tighten, she swears not to abandon hope.

Well, let me tell you somethin'

You have no idea what I'm capable of.

She finds it harder to breathe. The thing pressing against her is pulsing rapider, firmer as the maniac exerts more of his weight onto her. The girl feels cells in her brain go pop as the maniac squeezes the life from her. Her hand continues to grab around wildly. Is this it? As tears blind her eyes, the world around her loses color. In flashes, she reflects in mid-seconds. Escaping from Boston. Making her way through the deathtrap metropolis with the man. The tragic loss of their comrades after their final victory over the hunters from Pittsburgh. The dam, confronting the man about his past. Finally breaching the man's self-imposed wall, the two of them determined to find the Fireflies.

After all she has been through, it can't be for nothing.

As the strangulation reaches its climax, the girl feels light return to her eyes dimly as her fingers feel the firm grip of a round handle. Wrapping her hand upon it, the maniac is so distracted by his desire to play his twisted games that he does not see her lift it from the tile and swing it. The pendulum reversed, hourglass stalled, the girl is now on top as she lifts the machete in the high. He screams in terror, opening his mouth as if to beg for mercy. But the girl does not see him, for her eyes are closed, and as she brings the machete down there is no screaming to be heard.

Just the sound of flesh punctured by metal, the cracking of bones like the falling of skyscrapers and the mutilation of human complexion no different from the destruction of rotten fruit. Emotions overpower her. She blindly swings away, unaware that the maniac is long departed the realm of living. Blood stains her face, tears dribble from her closed eyes. She doesn't hear the footsteps approaching her. The man crying out. Ellie!

Stop, stop! He begs her.

The machete clatters as it falls from her grasp. She doesn't recognize his voice, nor the feel of his touch. In her emotionally-fueled terror, she mistakes him as another one of the maniacs that have overrun this asylum.

No! Don't fucking touch me! She screams at the man as she tries to break out of his hold. But he doesn't let her go.

Ssh. Ssh. He reassures her. It's okay. It's me.

Look.

Look.

Her eyes pointing downward, she starts to recognize the warmth of a fatherly figure as his welcoming hands warm her frozen, hardened cheek.

It's me.

She starts to tell him about the maniac, sobbing. He tried to

He hugs her, holding her against his chest as she cries. Oh baby girl, it's okay. It's okay.

Joel… she calls to him as he comforts her.

It's okay now.

At last, she opens her eyes. Staring not into the face of the maniac, but into the visage of the man. He whispers words of comfort, wiping away the blood and tears. He lifts her up, holding her closely to him. The two of them walk away, leaving behind a bloodstained machete embedded into the floor and the nigh-unrecognizable form of a carcass that was once human. Feelings carry them through this frozen hell, towards fleeting safety and the warmth of spring. Love, friendship, and a hope in hell.

The shepherd has reclaimed his lost lamb and he will never let her go again.

No matter what happens to them on the road ahead, the perils that they face and the hardships they endure, the man's promise is strengthened to unbreakable armor. He promises for himself. For the girl he is holding across the shoulder right now as they walk unwaveringly through blinding winds and chilling snowfall. And a final promise to the memory of her.

That he will never lose her again, never let go no matter what it will force him to do to the world that stole his lamb from him. The answer to him is clear, no more doubts about surviving in this cruel dark world. He has something to fight for until the day the world finally comes for him. On that day, where the red sun sets and the luminous full moon rises, there shall be the nightcalls of night birds and the rustling of water as fish swim downstream. Where he rides away with the sunset, never to look back. Where he ends up, he will erect a house. A safe house, with the amenities of a world eons ago reduced to specks to dust. The world where no infected, no bandits, no Gods, no masters walk. A world for him and his lambs. But until that day comes, the man shall live in this world as best he can.

They leave Lakeside behind, the silent hell left to eat away at itself. They have nothing but the road ahead to look forward to. And they continue to walk down that road, the man and the girl, despite all it has ripped from and thrown at them.

They may be the last of us in a world where savagery and selfishness have consumed all that was once pure, where inhuman monsters click and bloat in the darkness. Where authority has become a twisted, corrupted mirror of itself. But this is also a world where peace and beauty can still be found, where the precious few still fight to preserve and restore what once was. Where even the smallest moments of splendor are worth defying the reaper's scythe for just one more day.

It can't be for nothing.


	2. Factions

The title of this story and its plot were loosely inspired by TLOU's multiplayer mode "Factions." It's probably the longest thing I've written in a long while and it was a pain to write, since none of the characters and locations (unless you count infected) were available in the game to base my writing off of. Don't worry, Joel and Ellie will be back soon in another story in this collection. To be honest, I'm not too pleased with how it ultimately turned out, especially the ending. But who knows? Maybe you'll think different.

* * *

"This was a fucking mistake." The driver of the armored truck muttered as the vehicle rumbled through the cracked road, navigating around rows and rows of abandoned cars. A cigarette chomped between his lips, he briefly drove one-handed as he coughed out some smoke. An unevenly shaved beard dotted his face, and his red-lined eyes were hidden by a pair of dirt-encrusted shades. His side-driver was younger, blonde-hair tied in a ponytail. She checked over the ammunition in her rifle. The military convoy had run into some trouble on the supply run. Only five rounds left, but she wasn't too worried. She was of the generation born after Day Zero, the generation who had grown up in the Quarantine Zone and trained from the second they could walk to pick up a gun and shoot. The military school had prepared her for situations like this.

"You think? We got the crap they sent us to get and a bonus back there as well."

"And was it worth losin 'bout five of our best guys to get it? Three of 'em, was my friends from before the fucking pandemic. And now they're dead, and in exchange we get some shit veggies and that uncooperative bastard back there."

"It's still food, isn't it?"

"Yeah, foods for an ungrateful fucking civvie pop back in the QZ." The driver shook his head. "We kept 'em safe from all the infected and stragglers, and what do they do? They fucking riot 'cause we do our best to keep 'em fed for years, they riot cause we take the measures to prevent another outbreak! Thankless fucks don't understand the sacrifices we made with the uniform, they just think about themselves. If it was up to me, I'd have 'em all fire-lined and empty the city for ourselves, we soldiers who deserve fucking San Fran."

"But nothing but drivin's up to you, is it, Sgt. Ronnie?"

"Yeah… before the outbreak I was nothing but a shit cabbie in the city. And now, even with the end of the world, I'm still nothing better than a pissant driver. You're lucky, Kate. This world's all ya know. But me… sometimes I still get nightmares dreamin' about the good 'ol days."

"Hmm.." She thought and shouted at the soldiers in the back. "Hey Stu, The Firefly talk yet?"

"Oh, he's been talking, Kate!" Stewart shouted back. "Just nothing we wanna hear! Hit him again, Pvt. Jordan."

"Um… sure, sir." The sound of a fist hitting flesh. Their prisoner coughed up something, most likely vomit or blood. At end of the line before the truck turned back, they had been attacked by the Fireflies. There the five men had been shot up bad. Fireflies got fought off, and they took one of 'em prisoner for a round of interrogation before they cut his throat and dumped him off in the road. "Now talk. Please? We don't have all day…"

"Sure…" The Firefly's tongue pushed out a loose tooth, clattering on the floor of the truck as it landed. "An anemone or clematis plant's juice can cause a rash. When pruning them, it's a good idea to wear gloves"

"Aw, not this fuckin' shit again." Stewart muttered and pushed Pvt. Jordan aside. Without warning, he kicked the Firefly in the groin, knocking the tied prisoner's chair over. "We are all fucking tired of your nonsense. Now tell us where your goddamn armories are!"

The Firefly, despite the clear pain in his face, continued to mock his captors. "I'm not squealing to any pigs. But go ahead… do whatever you like. I may die, but it doesn't matter. You know why? You didn't kill everyone back there. And y'know… we had a radio that kept us in contact with the other squads in the state. Squads better armed than us and with even more beef to settle with ya pigs…"

"Corporal Simon, want to take a crack?" Stewart called to the last passenger, a helmeted soldier in body armor who looked over his assault rifle with a glazed, bored look.

"Can I waterboard?"

"No. Can't afford to waste that H2O!"

"Got the wrench?"

"Yeah. Toss him it, Pvt. Jordan."

"That'll do." And the sound of metal hitting flesh filled the truck's interior. The Firefly kept laughing, although with each passing second his laughter sounded more like screams.

"I can't wait to shoot him…" Kate muttered.

"You're just a private, kid. Stewart's the highest ranking bitch here and he's gonna decide how we off him." Gardner reminded her. "If it were up to me persay, though, I say we oughtta tie him to the bumper and drive him along till he dies."

* * *

In the time before the Cordyceps pandemic, this town was called Half Moon Bay. A seaside settlement, with decent stretches of beach and more than just a few fine eateries. But the tourists, fishermen, and surfers dried out when the infection made its way to the Pacific coast. Along with much of the coastal dwellings, the town was flooded by desperate survivors in the confused chaos trying to make their way to the boats. In hopes of sailing to find impossible nirvana, a place where infection could not reach. The massive fighting died down when the military finally rolled in to quarantine the town. The boats since then have either sunk or rusted beyond use, the fuel siphoned by various stragglers wandering through for their land vehicles.

On the run, forced out of the San Francisco quarantine zone by a relentless military fist, the Fireflies of that city split into groups that spread throughout Northern California. One such crew settled in the remains of Half Moon Bay, long abandoned by all except the dead and gone-in-mind. The infected in the parts of the town which they used had been cleared out, although spores still clouded many interiors, and the Fireflies were always sure to exert caution when exploring the unchecked outskirts. But in the time that they had been there, the Fireflies had managed to fortify the parts of town that they owned without question. And as more and more supplies found their way into Firefly storage, many bandits learned to avoid the town… from word of mouth or the hard way.

The Fireflies of the Bay had kept in touch with the other bands roaming throughout the state via radio sporadically. And recently, they had received a transmission from another Firefly group.

bzzt "…got jumped by military… killed half of 'em but they shot up Ronson, Cindy… bzzt… and nabbed Lt. Ross. He knows where a lot of us are bunkered out and he might've cracked bzzt… think they're heading your way…" The rest of the transmission was static but the leader of the Half Moon Bay Fireflies had heard enough to know what his next course of action was. Reaching for a dull green beret and a pair of aviators, he slid the hat over a head of oily, uncombed black hair and pushed the glasses down a slightly crumpled nose. His uniform with adorned with makeshift badges, trophies plucked from dead soldiers , stragglers and infected he had slain.

He poured himself a small shot of tequila, of which there was only one and a half good bottles left. The other Fireflies, sitting at the same table hunkered around the radio, looked at him like students waiting for the next instruction. Aside from him, there were six others in the makeshift dining room, of which was located in the ruins of a real-estate office. Eleven more Fireflies were patrolling the town, looking for stragglers and infected.

"What are we going to do, Jack?" An Asian, bald and eyelashes outgrown, broke the silence.

"Isn't it obvious?" Jack replied. "Hit the armory and inspect our traps. We all lost a buddy fleeing from SF to those pigs, and it's about time we gave them a little something back."

* * *

"Alright… alright… hold still, ya hornless shit..." The bandit stalked the deer through the forest, following the doe until she stopped to take a drink from a brook. Finger tight against a rifle trigger, his foul-tainted breath stilled, the bandit put down one pound too much into his next step. And as the crunching of leaves filled the tree-lined area, the deer whirled its head around and saw him with the rifle. In seconds it was bounding off, too fast for him to catch up. In anger, the bandit tossed down his rifle and began to irately hop down and down on it repeatedly.

"GOD-FUCKING DAMMIT, GOD FUCKING DAMMIT, BAMBI! I'LL FUCKING GET YOU AND SODOMIZE YOU WITH THE TIP OF THIS RIFLE BEFORE GOD-FUCKING-BLOWING YOUR SHIT INSIDES TO DEATH! FUCK FUCK FUCK! ALL THAT FUCKING WORK SWEATIN DOWN MY NECK FOLLOWING FUCKING BAMBI FOR NOTHING! FUCK THIS BROKEN SHIT!"

"Cool it, Cuchillo." A calmer voice of rationality. "You wanna break that rifle when it took us years in the ass to get one that good or attract fuckin' mushy-heads with that racket?"

"Well, ex-cuse me, Danny-boy, but some of us in the crew dog shit tired of eatin' fuckin gulls and fishies. We want some real meat… fulla bloody veins and shit we can chew! And that meat just fuckin' ran from me cause it hears too damn well!"

"Calm down nonetheless, beaner-boy." Danny admonished him. "These woods are packed full of deer. You get another shot at meat down the line eventually."

"Christ… I just miss those cheeseburgers so fucking much…" Cuchillo muttered. "And now… ground Bambi seems just as tasty as ground beef…"

"Hey boys, take a look at this!" The token female and black of the bandits, Bianca, shouted at them somewhere from up the trail. The two bandits, slinging their weapons around their shoulders, ran following her voice.

"What is it, B?" Danny asked.

"Check it out." She handed him a pair of binoculars.

"Oh my god…" Danny mumbled.

"Geez, Danny-boy, what is it? Your momma humping a bloater?" Cuchillo muttered. Danny ignored the remark and handed him the binoculars. Cuchillo took a quick peek. Coming down the highway in the distance was a military truck. Cuchillo hadn't seen any of these since the Quarantine Zones closed themselves to all outsiders.

"Where it heading, B?"

"Half-Moon!"

"Hah, idiots! Don't they know that a nest of stingers?" Cuchillo laughed.

"Say… that gives me a good idea…" Danny said. "We always on the move and we could use some stuff to keep us happy while on the move… them military dudes don't go outside of their fancy walls often. But whenever they do, they bound ta be carryin stuff with them. And maybe stuff in that stuff."

"What? Don't tell me you actually thinkin' of going against blackies and yellows at once! They got those fuckin' video game rapid-fire machine guns and who knows what else? Us, a buncha rusty pistols and single-shot rifles!" Bianca objected.

"Well… I see two ways we can take out both black and yellow and then take their stuff so we can live like kings till the day we croak. We can either be patient and wait for one o'em to kill the other, and swoop in the finish 'em off."

"Borin!" Bianca objected again. "I can't sit this long! I've gone three months without killin' another human bean and I need my blood!"

"Or we can do this the dumb way."

"What's the dumb way?"

"You'll see. Let's make our way back to Tap and the ride. I bet there's a pack of wild clickers just waitin' to be found and itchin' for a bit of exercise round these parts."

* * *

"Town coming up in a few miles." Stewart, now in shotgun and looking at a faded highway map, commented. "Better drive slow and careful, Sarge."

"Why the hell should I? So anythin' vicious there hiding can have all their darn good time to get to us? Nah, I think I'll just plough through that goddamn wreck like Satan's coffee machine!" Gardner then cursed as he hacked out some more cigarette smoke.

"Jesus, Ronnie. What if you drive over landmine?"

Ronnie laughed. "At worst, we'll find some half-naked cannibals waiting for us there. You think they'd have access to landmines. Get real, Stewie!"

Meanwhile, in the back, Cpl. Simon had finished his business with the captive Firefly. A large brown bag with a single slit that passed for an airhole had been placed over his head. The Firefly was breathing still, but at last silent. They had given up on retrieving any sort of information relevant from him. Simon had retreated into a deep nap. The two privates stared at each other from opposite sides of the truck.

"Hey, Kate… about that night…" Pvt. Jordan started somewhat nervously. "We haven't seen each other much since until we got stuck together on this truck… but y'know…"

"Know about what? We were idiot kids and we got drunk. End of story."

"No, it's not the end, Kate."

"Alright, so you didn't use any contraception and it happened to be that time of the month for me. And unless that stick thing was defective…"

"What will we do? You know what the stances of the big bosses on pregnancy are!"

"We, Alex? What a pleasant surprise. And here I was, thinking that you were a runner." Kate rolled her eyes.

"Shit, Kate, you are never going to give me a freebie for that, are ya? Listen… I regret cracking like that but shit… it was the first time I ever saw one of those things in person! Not all of us can keep up the brave knight in shining armor routine when faced with certain death… I swear, back then… I thought it was the end. That I'd be infected, slowly lose my mind bit by bit until I was nothing more than an empty shell… crap, can't believe I'm saying this but…"

"No buts, Alex. You think I'm not scared either? My older sister caught it in the QZ… they got my dad to pull the trigger but he suffered a breakdown after doing it. They had to restrain him or else he would've blown the rest of the family to kingdom come. Ever since that day, I've known that our death can happen at any time, by anything… but listen to me Alex, shit happens and we just have to adapt. Because you can let the world fuck you or you fuck the world. And the two of us… we'd make a fine pair of world-fuckers." She stepped over and sat by his side, putting his hand in her's.

"Alright, Kate. But what about the baby?" Alex Jordan said, his voice worried about possibilities and now a whisper. "At best, they'll take it away from us and have us court-martialed for misconduct… but you know how we're running out of everything in the QZ. I can't bring myself to think about what I know they'll do…"

"Then don't. Wanna know how to stop being scared? Focus your mind on other things."

"I don't want to have to kill my own kid. But if you want to go that way… I don't know. We aren't so flirty or huggy now… but once upon a time ago, I cared 'bout you more than anything else. If that's what you wish…"

"I'm not getting an abortion, even if it's a true asshole move of us to bring a kid into a world like this. And I'm not letting the higher-ups take our child from us. I'll stay together for you"

"I know a couple of smugglers who know the rooftop and underground systems well. I can bribe a few of our fellow guys who man the depositories… in exchange for the right firepower, they'd smuggle us out…"

"Good to know you finally are the man with a plan." She kissed him on the cheek. "Hey, we'll talk about this later, when we get back to SF, alright?"

"Okay. Love you always, Kate."

"I know."

The two leaned forward to kiss on the lips, but settled for an awkward hug instead.

* * *

When the world had ended, many survivors had tried to hunker down here in the mobile park. But all it took to bring that dream crashing down were a few spores. More had come after the initial disaster, adding to the ranks of the dead and the diseased. Moans of the freshly turned… crazed giggling of those who had been infected for far longer, and the clicks and growls of those who had become bloated, human bodies warped beyond recognition by fungi. And all four kinds of dead men walking perked up as they heard the roar of the truck engine. Insane hordes squirmed out from the abandoned trailers, from underground passageways, from derelict restaurants and burnt-out gas stations. Screeches filled the air as they chased after the moving vehicle. The passengers in the back of the truck hollered and hooted as they fired their weapons at the horde. Normally, they'd be pissing themselves dry but the cocaine and the alcohol downed moments before had altered the senses.

"Man, oh, man! Double-friggin-headshot! Two-for-one special!" Danny laughed as he fired off his loud revolvers. "Boom! I tol' you this was gonna be the dumbest thing we ever did!" As he kicked away a stalker that tried to leap onto the back of the truck.

"Yeah, but who the hell cares, D-man?" Bianca wildly laughed as she hurled a nail bomb into the herd of infected. Infected blew into red bits, but more trampled over the dead. "We real badasses here! How 'bout you, Cuchillo? How many points you score?"

"I'd score some if that fucker Tap kept this thing steady!" Cuchillo's eye peered into his rifle's scope, missing three shots in a row. "Hey fuck-name, slow this hunk of shit down a bit, will ya?"

"Those soldier boys and Fireflies ought to be carving each other up right now! You wanted some human targets as well, remember? Gotta get there hot n fast, thirty minutes or else we gone get none."

"Aw, shucks. Fine, then. But you owe me a high score, Tappy! Me bottom from top later 'night, remember!" Cuchillo roared. "Yo, Danny-boy, tell me why we was shooting them again in the first place? 'dis ammo wasn't easy to come by, ya remember or not?"

"Cause we got guns and they targets that want our meat. What else we gonna do?"

"WOOO!" All four of the bandits screamed with joy as they barreled down the dead highway in their ride, a thinning herd of infected chasing after them. They were lunatics, and the world had become their open asylum. They were having the time of their lives

* * *

The Fireflies had properly equipped themselves for the battle to come. All were clad in helmets and body armor, weapons strung around their bodies. There was a gun for every situation. Sniper rifles of which to take out a man's head through the air from all the way across town. Shotguns to blast bodies to bits with shrapnel up close and personal. Semi-automatic rifles, fit for all seasons. Even a goddamn flamethrower, to make pork BBQ out of these army pigs. A bounty of supplies of which to craft improvised weaponry as deadly as the professional deal.

Jack smiled as he spun his revolver in his hands before holstering it.

"Have all the traps been set?"

"Sir, yes, sir!"

"Those goons think that this will be a routine town devoid of life when they see it. But to their displeasure, they will see that our candle light is burning strong. And with our flames, we shall construct a fiery grave for them."

"Aye!"

"For the world that was! For the shattering of the fist of FEDRA oppression! For the memory of our slain leaders and comrades! For the Fireflies!"

"For the Fireflies!" They echoed.

"Good to see you are all enthusiastic about our boar hunt. Now, let's get into position. Remember your parts and play them well!"

* * *

Pvt. Jordan was now leaning over, his head falling on Kate's shoulder.

"You ever have doubts about killing them? Not bandits or clickers, I mean… the Fireflies."

"Not really. Orders are orders. They try to kill us so we try to kill them."

"The people don't think the same way. Have you ever listened to their chants during the riots?"

"Before we bring in the gas and the tanks for shock and awe? Of course they love the Fireflies. Fireflies understand the principle of bread and circuses better than we do. But honestly, if the people opened their eyes a bit, they'd see the Fireflies are capable of just as much bad shit as us girls and boys in uniform."

"Maybe. But you know… about that other thing… if we are going to succeed, we're going to have to screw the rules for ourselves."

"Oh, I know that. But until then, let's play the parts the playwright has written us, shall we?" She kissed him on the cheek.

"Fine, Kate." Pvt. Jordan said halfheartedly. Two of his brothers, Alan and Scott, had joined the Fireflies and had gotten their brains splattered against the wall or publicly hung as a reward for their efforts. They were enemy but family was family. Pvt. Jordan had his morals but it was a compass that kept swaying and swaying until it would eventually fall still. He didn't know what to think anymore, the less and less he paid attention to what he had been taught at the military school and more and more to what he had experienced in person.

"And as I said…" Sgt. Ronnie up front. "I'm transitioning to a speed demon and there's no goddamn crap you can do to make me stop!"

"Fine, Ricky." Stewart sighed. "But you will be court-martialed for disobeying a superior's order and I'll see to it that you are flogged, mark my words."

"Oh, I'm so scared of your words!" Ronnie chortled as he stepped on the gas, pushing the truck forward. The sudden jolt sent Kate flying on top of Alex, knocking Simon awake upon which he instinctively loaded his rifle and jabbed it around, and guided the Firefly face first causing him to groan. Ronnie's laughter, mirthful as it was, was suddenly cut short.

The sound of glass breaking.

Stewart's face splattered with blood as the bullet entered Ronnie's eye and came out on the other side. Then the sound from outside of a wheel being popped by another bullet and the vehicle wildly beginning to swerve. Stewart was knocked back by the jerk, his body colliding against the door. Head hit the window so hard it cracked. Pushing past the throbbing headache in his back, ignoring the surprised screams in the back, he forced Ronnie's corpse from the driver's seat and put his hands on the wheel. Fighting to gain control, he could hear people starting to riddle the truck's armored exterior with bullets. Armor-piercing, good god. They were fighting a very pissed hive of Fireflies.

He had just about gotten it steady when the sound of something very massive rumbling down a hill was heard. It crashed into the truck, sending all inside flying and crashing.

* * *

"Shitshitshitshitshitkeepcalmrememberwhatshesaid" Jordan stammered as he dragged the barely conscious Kate from the wreckage. Simon and Stewart had already gotten out, and God help them if the two higher-rankers had been offed by their attackers. "thinkhappierthoughtslikehowgooditllbetosmashinoneofthosefuckersheadswithhisowngunohgodohgod"

Their prisoner was dead at last, impaled through by pipe that had made its way into the wreckage. Kate muttered something as he put her onto his shoulders. He limped his way from the wrecked truck to the outside, where Simon and Stewart had taken cover. Stewart had taken out his radio and was barking into it.

"ugh… giv…un…" She muttered, some blood dribbling from the corner of her mouth as she talked.

"What?"

"A gun, asshole!"

"Sure, sure." He rested her a brick wall, handing her a revolver.

"Good boy, Alex." She panted.

"Are you ok?"

"Shaken, stirred, but not broken." She smiled. The two turned their attention to Stewart.

"This is Major William S. Stewart, FEDRA Search Unit Nine-Five-Nine. We have been ambushed by Fireflies on routine supply run! Repeat, we have been ambushed by Fireflies! Sergeant Richard Gardner is dead, one of the privates appears wounded! Asking for back-" A sniper shot destroyed the radio, sending bits of shrapnel into Stewart's face. Stewart cursed and wiped much of the shards from his face.

"We're on our own, aren't we?" Simon asked, scanning the area with a rifle scope muttering: "Come out and die, fucking yellowjackets…"

"Afraid we are." Stewart said, checking his ammo. "But it was an honor leading this squadron, and it shall be an honor going out wit"

"Cut the motivational speech, alright?" Alex shouted at him. "Let's just get this over with, shall we?"

His eye caught a female Firefly, short and pale-skinned, with a sniper rifle scurrying from some cover to a high vantage point in the distance.

"Firefly, over there! She's got a military-grade sniper on her!"

"No problem. It's a matter of point and click." Simon commented. With a burst, they heard a scream and Jordan fleetingly saw the Firefly's body tumble down a flight of stairs. But no sooner had the Firefly fallen had another taken a shot at them. Simon ducked back behind the cover as the bullet dispelled some of the shelter. The bastard was using a suppressed rifle, making it difficult to pinpoint the Firefly's location.

"They've got us pinned down." Stewart remarked grimly. "And we don't know how many of them there are."

"I can try to sneak and take some of 'em out quietly." Pvt. Jordan offered. He was scared to shit right now, and he was surprised he hadn't pissed himself yet. He knew that his offer was suicidal, but still, so was remaining in this wreckage to wait for his death to come. As everyone had egged him on so often, it was time to man up. And come to death himself. But he would not die for military, he had no love for the uniform that had dictated his life since his childhood at the military school. For if he should pass, so be it. But she would live. For even though he knew nothing to confirm it, Alex Jordan felt deep down that he had sired one and that the mother ought to live.

"Go ahead."

"Let me wingwoman for him." Kate muttered as she peeked over the wall. Instantly, Fireflies were shouting and firing. She ducked her head back down.

"Private Rayner, you aren't in top shape. Stay back and cover him!" Stewart shouted as a Firefly with a molotov cocktail rushed at them. Stewart fired with his 10mm at the bottle, and the Firefly was consumed in a shower of flames.

"But-"

"No buts, Private! That's an order!"

"You know what? Fuck you and your orders! This is a matter of life and death, and for your information, I'd rather take the path I think leads away from the lit-tunnel. He's gonna need a buddy to watch his ass."

"Fine, then. But I will see to it that both of you are court-martialed and"

"Yeah, yeah, flogged in public. Just toss us something and we'll be on our way, okay?" Pvt. Jordan irritably said. Stewart tossed him a canister of tear gas and some spare ammo. The two privates unsheathed their small knives, silent but deadly.

"The one time we don't take the suppressed weapons with us…" The private muttered and he was off. They crawled to their knees, crouching, and the two privates made their way deeper into the Firefly nest, using various pieces of wreckage to hide their movement.

"Aw, hell… if they do make it back… I'll need an entire tavern to myself…" Stewart rubbed his head as he pressed against the wall. The Fireflies were starting to amass against their position. A bullet whizzed over his head, taking out some hair. Simon fired again and they heard another scream. Two more shots followed, and two more Fireflies were heard screaming their death cries. A Molotov cocktail whizzed over their heads, thank God overshooting in its arc. They had already taken down four, five, six maybe, but they could still hear them coming. Bullets were being fired at them. Soon enough they would be flanked, or maybe their cover destroyed. How many bastards in yellow were there?

Grimly, Stewart and Simon held their ground.

"Keep 'em focused on us, Simon. Let's see what the privates can do together."

* * *

Private Alex Jordan waited for the Firefly to pass by him before creeping out from the bushes and delivering a quick kick to the back of her knee. Before the Firefly could react, Alex whipped out his knife and plunged it into her chest, squeezing his arm against her neck for good measure. He waited until her the blood had stopped spurting and the body had stopped kicking before hiding her body away. He looked over what was on her. No silenced gun as he had hoped, but the next best thing. Aw hell… the next best thing as long as he knew how to use this thing. Of which he had no real idea… pull pack and release…. seemed simple enough but what seemed simple wasn't always so.

"How many you see from up there?" He whispered to Kate, who had made her into the ramshackle remnants of a two-floor restaurant to get a better view of the battle.

"Five dead..." She muttered. "I can see at least three from up here. They're all in cover, taking potshots at the Major and Corporal. But there's bound to be a few sneakers and snipers around here."

"How they holding up?"

"Don't seem to be dead yet. But they're staying still. C'mon, let's get a move on and take out some of the snipers for them."

Pushing past yards of overgrown weeds, up driveways of rusted hunks of metal, and through the foul-musk indoors, the two soldiers crept through the town. They avoided the main roads, for there was little present in those places to hide their movements with. The tension placed on them was high. The air was deceptively tranquil, the sound of waves hitting the beach in the distance with only the sounds of the gun battle audible in addition. Alex, in the corner of his eye, thought he saw a little flash of light like a flashlight. He quickly hushed for the two of them to hide, taking cover the welcome sign of a paint-chipped shopping center.

He focused his hearing.

"Well?"

"There's a sniper in that derelict motel right ahead of us. Second floor, third window from the left of the stairs."

"Just fired. You want to sneak over there and beat the shit out of him?"

"No. You see that bottle over there? Let's trade shit, shall we?"

"That bow? Um… I'm not…"

"Look Kate, you always were only slightly better than me when it came to accuracy. But now… slightly better makes all the difference." Alex muttered. "I'll distract him with the bottle. And when his eyes are when the bottle lands, fire the arrow. I think he's got a helmet on him but if you aim well enough you can take out an eye…"

"My pleasure."

"Good to know." And Alex tossed the bottle. Distracted, the Firefly sniper turned his attention to the source of sound. He saw nothing through his scope. Probably just another damn cat or rat. But before he could turn back to the battle in the distance, something sharp landed in his other eye. But to Alex and Kate's horror, it did not kill him instantly. The screams started, and with certainty other Fireflies would hear them. The two looked at each other and quickly began to move away from the area.

They were making good progress when Alex tripped the wire.

* * *

"A pity, Benny…" Jack plucked the arrow from the still body's eye. "But least you warned us some undercover pigs were in the barn before you croaked."

"Chelsea… get going and flush 'em out." He cocked his assault rifle. "We haven't got all day. I've let you tag along with me away from the cauldron till now and I don't want you to miss a piece of the action."

"Alright, Jack." Then they heard the shout. Strained anguish. Coming from north of where they were.

"What trap was that again, Chelsea?"

"As I recall, it was…"

* * *

Kate, mouth agape in horror, frantically tried to recollect what had just happened. The two had been silently sneaking their way away from where they had shot the sniper when Alex had pushed open a door for them to continue. There had been only a small click but Alex had been quick pushing Kate down on the ground but he was not quick enough to get down himself. Alex, alive but at death's door, moaned through bloodied teeth as he clutched his wound. He had been shot by a shotgun which had been rigged behind the door. Had it not been for his body armor, which was mere scraps by now, he'd be dead.

"Ohmigod, Alex…"

"Don't just stand there gaping, Kate. My pack… got some painkillers and bandages in there…" Kate moved him slightly, causing him to cry out slightly. "Ignore me..."

She fumbled around in his backpack. She found the pills, and hastily forced a few of them into his mouth. He gritted his teeth as he swallowed them dry.

"Helping?"

"No much. But get the bandages on me." Kate nodded, and quickly began to mend his wound with what little she had to work with. When it was done, she lifted Alex to his feet.

"Can you walk on your own?"

"Yeah, think s-argh!" He slumped forward on his knees as he took a step.

"I better help you."

"No, I'll just weigh you down and get you killed."

"I'm not leaving you behind, Alex. Don't you remember what you promised me? I was going to have a baby and you'd bribe some smugglers to get us out of the QZ togeth"

She did not hear the crunching of fallen leaves behind boots approaching them. Before she could finish her sentence, Kate was cut short as the red-haired Firefly lady tackled her, knocking her revolver from her hands. The two women rolled around on the ground, hands at each other's throats.

* * *

"GAH!" Simon screamed as one of the bullets hit the stump where his legs had been. But he continued to wildly fire his automatic as Major Stewart dragged him behind the wall. They had been holding out fine, although Stewart had started to get worried about the fate of the privates. Simon had reassured him that they had received the best training in the QZ from the day they were born, that they'd be fine. When he said that, the Firefly with the grenade had tossed it. Simon shielded his superior, pushing him away from the blast with a tackle. He'd gotten far away enough to not be killed as well, but not far enough to escape unscathed.

"Goddamn… they better still be making prosthetics in the QZ when we get back!" Simon choked through pained grunts.

"This isn't good." Stewart muttered.

"Should've left me back there. I would have held 'em off for you."

"You did just fine holding 'em off while I got you to safety as well."

"You really won't leave a man behind, will you?"

"Not a chance in hell. Now, let's make sure that there's no more room for us there when we're done with these fuckers!"

"You said it, boss."

"Wait a second..." Stewart though he heard something coming.

"Oh God no…" The clicks… the moans… the roars… it was something that neither of them ever wished to hear in a situation as heated as this. And on top of that… someone was blasting music.

"Is that what I think it is?"

"Now there is going to be no more room in hell." Stewart muttered darkly.

* * *

Kate pushed the Firefly off, staggering to her feet. She had only a few seconds to gauge her opponent. Red-hair tied back, shorter than her, and eyes with no intent in them but murder. Kate fumbled for her knife, but the Firefly was on her almost instantly. Her arm was hit so hard, the pain so shocking, that she opened up her palm and the knife flew away. She shoved the Firefly off and decked her across the lips. Blood started to dribble down the redhead's lips, but before Kate could follow up with another punch the Firefly had kicked her severely in the belly and then tackled her to the ground. The Firefly was punching her over and over again, and she could start to taste the blood in her mouth. Momentarily disorientated, she knew that she was being lifted forcibly to her feet. What she couldn't anticipate was the intense pain that erupted as the Firefly smashed her forehead against an overturned stone fountain. Kate could feel blood streaming down from the cut into her eyes, onto her lips. The Firefly lifted her head back for another smash, but Kate thrust her elbow back and struggled free in the ensuing grapple between the two. She tackled the Firefly this time, hitting her with a headbutt. With the Firefly flat on her back, Kate wrapped her head around the redheaded bitch's neck. But even as she started to squeeze, the Firefly punched her in the neck and kicked her off.

With considerable distance now between the two, Kate grabbed for her sidearm. But the Firefly had the same idea. And now the two were pointing their guns at each other before either had a chance to fire off. Both of them were bleeding and pissed.

"You are dead, ya blonde cunt. Your pig pals won't be recognizing you after what we do to you."

"Before or after I set you on fire?"

"Ahem." Alex, barely conscious, was pointing his 9mm at the redhead. In his state, he'd probably miss or be unable to get enough strength to pull the trigger but the redhead slightly backed off. Two to one was never good odds. Then they heard the whistle. Kate turned her head to see a Firefly with a green beret and a pair of dark shades.

"Well, well, well. What have we got ourselves here? A little impasse, it seems." He wasn't the most imposing of figures, not even six feet and only an inch taller than Kate by her estimate, but the way the worried composure of the redhead instantly improved after he showed up he must have been one of the big shots. And deadly. He withdrew a sawn-off shotgun and pointed it at Jordan.

"Y'know… I'm hurt, both of the girls are hurt, you're the only one not hurt. Seems a shame for us to waste our bullets when we're just gonna bleed out… ventually." Pvt. Jordan mumbled half deliriously, his grip of the pistol shaking. "Why don't we just sit down and talk this over."

"Of course. Let's just hug our problems out. Fat chance, you fascist hogs."

But before they could fire, they heard the crash and the explosion in the distance. And the nightmarish sounds of infected that could follow.

* * *

"WEE-OOO! We goin' real fast now!" Danny the Bandit laughed. The Fireflies scattered as the truck, roaring a mix of 80s heavy metal, plowed through them. And what the truck didn't splatter, the horde of infected tore apart. Behind them were a mix of screaming and gunfire. Danny and his crew laughed and the three of them sitting in the back of the truck fired off shots picking off several Fireflies and runners. Bianca lifted a wood 2x4, end fitted with sharp blades, and swung it against a passing Firefly. His bald head was lopped off instantly, leaving a bloody trail as it rolled away. His shotgun fell to the ground unused and forgotten in the sudden attack of infected.

"OOH OOH OOH! Up yours, ya riceeating yellow dogfuckah!" Bianca whooped as she crawled onto the hood of the truck and began to do a little dance.

"Damn, man!" Cuchillo commented as he burst the brains of a clicker with his rifle, now starting to regret taking that many drugs with his buddies before they went after the clickers. "We're fucking stoned as shit, and we gone be dead as shit soon!"

The Fireflies that had been caught up in the horde did their best to fight back but the swarm was simply too large. For each infected that was downed, there was another ready to deliver the sentence of death for the unlucky Fireflies. Some Fireflies, desperate to save their comrades, killed themselves in suicide attacks with their explosives and molotovs to take out large numbers of the horde. The remaining Fireflies dropped their ground and started to flee wherever the horde wasn't.

"Woah woah woah! Them yellows are running!" Danny yelled. "Let's finish e-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!" The truck suddenly swerved and the rough jerk sent Danny flying. Almost instantly, a bloater had found him. Danny futilely fired his gun repeatedly at the bloater but its rough shell of fungal growths protected it. The bloater roared and Danny's last scream was cut short as the bloater ripped his jaw off.

"Tap, man, we lost Danny! We gonna go back and pick him up." Cuchillo moaned.

"Danny's dead, idiot! And we idiots too, for ever agreeing to this stupid scheme!"

"Where's that stuff he was talking about, too? I want it now, and I want it aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa" Bianca slipped and a clicker was atop her. She screamed as it ripped out her lungs with its teeth.

"Man, Tap, we gotta get out of here!" Cuchillo moaned again. "Everyone boned but us!"

"We gone get the stuff first!"

"Fine! But I call dibs on the beer!"

Tap and Cuchillo laughed. It seemed that they were invincible gods. They had survived twenty years of outbreak. They had been fired at God knows who many times, killed God knows who many people and infected alike. They had to be invincible. The shit they went through would have killed any lesser survivor by now! Cuchillo managed to climb his way on the moving truck into the shotgun seat. See? He thought. Invincible! That would've killed any moron other than me! He high-fived with Tap and shouted at the top of his lungs like a character in a movie he enjoyed as a kid: "I am invincible!" Then the truck drove over a landmine.

* * *

Meanwhile, Stewart and Simon checked over their ammo. Several dead infected lay at their feet already. It would not be enough for the entire horde. They had escaped the main force, and the infected were currently wandering around searching for prey. They had enough bullets in all their guns to take out maybe two more runners.

"Major…" Simon mumbled. His lower body had lost all feeling. "I don't think the privates are coming back."

"I have the same feeling." Stewart said, his voice tinged with regret. "I'm sorry… to all of you." He lifted his arm. The sleeve had been torn, tooth marks apparent.

Turning to Simon.

"You know the protocol for infection."

"I do." A gunshot.

The horde heard and clicks filled the air once more.

As they rushed towards him, Simon unpinned all of his grenades.

"Hope you choke, you motherfuckers."

* * *

"Jesus Christ… I've never seen that many clickers at once!" Jack gasped, his cool exterior finally broken.

"Jack, let's kill these two and get out of here!" Chelsea said, her face stricken with worry, and her finger moving towards a trigger.

"You know…" Pvt. Jordan, his eyes flickering."

"Know what?" Jack yelled at him.

"We ought to call a truce right now."

"What the fuck? Hell no!" Chelsea moved to kick him but Kate pushed her away. The two females glared at each other, their trigger fingers ready.

"Even if you kill us, you'll have to get past them." Kate mocked the Fireflies. Then they heard a screech and the two Fireflies whirled around to see a clicker rushing at them. Jack fired a shot from his shotgun but the bullet only glanced off a bit of flesh. The clicker grabbed him and opened its mouth before another shot blew off its head for good. Alex sighed. It had hurt him like hell just to lift his arm and concentrate enough to accurately shoot.

"Listen to me, all three of you. We hate you, and you hate us. But I don't want to get torn apart by those animals." Alex groaned as Kate helped him up. "And four of us are better odds than just two… we can shoot each other after we the hell out of here!"

"Work with a FEDRA lackey? You serious? Jack, just let me shoot them and we'll run!"

"C'mon! We're not soldiers or Fireflies anymore… we're survivors." Alex shouted at them grimly. "And now… it's time to survive unless you want one of those things tearing out your throat." Then he turned to Kate. "We'll get out of here. I promise. For you and our child."

"Nice try. But I know your kind too well." Jack said. He motioned and Chelsea blew out his brains. Kate gasped as the father of her child "And now…"

"You bastards!" Kate moved quicker than Chelsea. She clubbed the red-head with the revolver's butt, then kicked Chelsea's own gun away. Before Jack could do anything, she kicked him in the crotch. Kate grabbed the stunned Firefly and pushed him down the slope. He rolled downwards right into the grasp of the incoming horde. Jack's screams joined the hellish symphony as stalkers and clickers tore him apart.

"You killed Jack! You dumb cunt! I'll kill y" Chelsea cried before Kate shot her in the knee. Chelsea screamed loudly, gathering the attention of the infected who weren't busying themselves on Jack. "You bitch! You bitch! You can't leave me here!"

"Of course I can. You're the one who said soldier and Firefly can't be friends, remember? Plus… you deserve to suffer for killing Alex." Kate spit on her. She ran over to Alex's corpse. Frantically, she snatched his dog tags from him. Aside from the kid on the way, these would be all that was left of him. Gave him a silent apology for not burying him, for him never being able to see what their bastard would look like. Embraced his still body as it grew cold, so that it would be warm for just one more minute. Kissed his dead cheek and shed a few tears. She grabbed his unused canister of tear gas. It wouldn't kill any of them… but it would blind the infected that could still see. She lobbed it directly into the herd of infected as they feasted upon the Fireflies.

She turned and ran. The town was packed with infected and who knows how many hostile stragglers or Fireflies out for a bit of human blood. As far as she knew, her entire squadron was dead and the car was wrecked. There was no way of escaping quickly or easily. She was on her own. But as Alex had planned for them… it was high time that she deserted them. What a pity. The military had taught her how to survive and this is how she ultimately repaid them. Kate was scared, but she couldn't concentrate on her fright. As she ran, infected on her heels, she concentrated on other things. What the future would offer, as her belly got bigger with all that was left of Alex in this world now. Had they ever truly been in love? She didn't know. Their teenage years were a confused mess. But he was a friend nonetheless and it would do their time together back in the military school no good if she let herself be caught and torn apart like the Fireflies back there. Her prospects were grim. Realistically, with the wounds she had suffered and the amount of supplies she had on her, her odds were bad. But she had to survive. What Alex and she had done together... it changed everything. Before she would've simply fired a bullet into the side of her head before the clickers could get to her, but the chess strategy had been redrawn. It wasn't the most motherly of loves, bringing a child into a world as twisted as this one, but it was not cruel as not letting her child live to begin with. So for her life, for life to be, and in memory of life that was, the former private abandoned the life she had lived until this day and fled past the ruins of the battle-scarred town.

With those thoughts on her mind, Katelyn Wolfe ran far.

The hounds of hell followed. Death was a greedy mistress, it had eaten much on this day, and its appetite had room for just one more. But despite its beckoning allure, Kate ignored it and continued to run until she had run out of breath.


	3. A Perfect Day

It had been days since the two of them had left Tommy's dam at Jackson, but their long-sought destination of the University still seemed so far away. It was still the crisp of fall, but they both could feel it. The cold grasp of winter was closing in. Ellie wondered aside from Fireflies, what else would greet them at the university Tommy had told them about. From what little she knew about universities, they seemed to be like mini towns where people lived to learn. Reminded her of the military school a bit. She would be sure to ask Joel about universities when they got closer to their endpoint. Were the people who lived there before the outbreak still alive? Would they have formed their own society, helped by Fireflies, like many of the people whom she had met on her journey since she left Boston? Ellie hoped that if so, those people would be welcoming like Tommy and Maria. She was getting tired of these constant bandit or hunter attacks, and she wished not to learn the full extent of just what these splinter fragments of decaying humanity had become capable of since the old world ended. And what would those Fireflies be like? She had not seen a living Firefly since Joel and Tess took her from Marlene. The only Fireflies she had known were Marlene's group and Riley. Would these Fireflies be as hospitable to her as they had?

"Hey, Ellie." Joel asked her as he weaved the horse around the abandoned cars cluttering the highway. "Should be nearing the state border in about a mile."

"Good to hear that, Joel." Ellie replied. Before they had left Jackson, Ellie had become stiffened with doubts of Joel's intents. She was plagued with worry that he would leave her behind like everyone else she had cared about had, especially once Maria told her about Sarah. She then heard the rumors that Tommy would be taking over for the rest of the journey. Ellie remembered hitching one of the horses, riding from the dam through wilderness until she had reached the deserted ranch house. There she got another glimpse into the world she never knew, and she could only shake her head at how easy things were for them back then, and how they still didn't appreciate what they had. She remembered the doubts brewing to a climax until Joel finally found her.

She confronted him.

She thought that their journeys had finally split paths after he angrily told her that he knew she wasn't his daughter.

But Joel was pleasantly full of surprises.

"Joel, what have you been calling our friend here?" Ellie asked.

"Hmm…" Joel wondered. "I've been calling it Cash in my head."

"After money? Why, Joel?" Ellie asked.

"No, not that sorta cash. Johnny Cash. Country singer who died long before the world turned to shit." Joel said. "Hmph… Tommy went back home and he couldn't bother recovering even one of our records of his songs…"

"I think I oughta hear his stuff before I can agree to naming our horse something like that." Ellie said determinedly.

"The fella here seems to like you better than me, Ellie." Joel replied with a small laugh. "Remember how much longer it takes me to feed him than you? Ellie, I think you should do the honor."

"Thanks, Joel. Hmm… let me think…" Ellie wondered. Riley was the first to come to her mind. But Riley brought back painful memories… and she did not want to tell Joel about her friend who was with her the day her life changed forever just yet. Damn it, why didn't she ask Tommy before they left? Then her mind landed on something. She didn't even know what it meant to her or where it came from, but it was perfect.

"Let's call him Callus. Much better than Cash. Pretty please, Joel?"

"Uh…. sure thing, Ellie." What sort of goddamned horse name was Callus? Joel wondered. He certainly didn't agree with the assertion of its superiority over a name like Cash. He didn't want to rain on Ellie's decision right now, but when the mood was right, he would be sure to question her about it.

* * *

Next to a trickling creek and a patch of trees, the duo stopped for a quick lunch. Scarce hours ago they had galloped past the border, from Wyoming into Colorado. The forests began receding a while back, as the two passed more and more stretches of flat plain. Ellie bit into a fresh apple and for Joel, he dined on a can of God-knows-how-old-this-filth-is beans. The sky was partially cloudy today, the clouds hanging low and making shapes as they floated on. Ellie threw her core into the creek and bent over it, looking to see if there were any cool things like turtles or even those gross toads she had only seen in books. Disappointed, she looked back briefly at Joel, who was looking up at the clouds. She looked back, but nothing had made the stream more interesting to look at. Not even a fish swam in its currents, only a few bizarre bugs zipping back and forth on its surface.

"Whatcha doing, Joel?" Ellie joined him.

"Something we used to do as kids when we was real bored." Joel told her. "Look up at the clouds and try to see if they reminded us of anything."

"Sounds fun." Ellie said. "Hmm… that one looks like… a pterodactyl!"

"Pterodactyl, huh?" Joel gave a small smile. "Haven't heard any kids use that word in a long time. Didn't even see them carry toy dinos around in Boston."

"Well, there was an old book that a Firefly back in Boston let me look at once after I got bitten and they were making up their plans to get me out." Ellie remembered. "What about you, Joel?"

"This is probably going to fly over your head, Ellie, but I see… Batman flying his plane into the horizon." Joel sighed.

"Who the hell is Bat Man?" Ellie asked, confused but curious.

"Well, it was the title of a comic book. Like the ones we keep stumbling across that you like to read."

"So, did he turn into a giant bat and rip people open to suck out all their blood like a werewolf?" Ellie asked again. "Or did he go around beating up people with bats like those you nail clickers with?"

Joel laughed. "No, Ellie. He wasn't a were-bat or a bat-wielding maniac. He was something they called superheroes back in the day, only he didn't really have superpowers like the rest. Just a ton of money and his big brains. He had all these inventions that helped him, and they were all bat-themed like Batmobile or Bat Clicker Repellant. Dressed up like a black bat, sometimes gray or blue, and he'd beat up criminals. Fought a weird bunch of crooks, too, like a psycho clown or a felon that made all his decisions with a coin toss."

Ellie laughed hard as he told her all this. "I'm sorry Joel, but that sounds really lame. I mean, he's called a Bat Man but he can't turn into a bat, so all he can do is dress up in tights and punch people? Was it a comedy or something?"

"Sometimes, yeah, like that corny old TV show but after Sarah's birth I recall the movies getting real dark."

"Well, you did mention psycho clowns, Joel. There was another smuggler in Boston that Marlene looked at when she was planning things before she deemed him unfit. Clowns scared him more than clickers."

"Hmph." Joel grumbled. "I'd be grateful for some killer clowns after all the shit I've had to fight… so, what was this smuggler called? Tess and I worked with some shady folks, but we never came across any clown-phobes."

"I don't remember. It was something with a N. Norman or Neddy, maybe? Don't really remember. But I've been thinking about something, Joel."

"What is it, Ellie?"

"Well, we've been talking about our pasts so much recently. But what about after we find the Firefly's lab?"

"We'll figure it out when it happens, Ellie. For now, let's focus on stayin' alive and getting you to the UCE in one piece."

* * *

"Hey, Joel, it's a sign." Ellie pointed out as Callus trotted through the road. There hadn't been any rough turbulence at all, not a single encounter with hostile humans or inhumans. "Hmm… Buckeye. Don't know what the hell that is, as usual."

"I'll tell you on the way, Ellie. As for the town, long as it ain't a bandit or infected nest, I'll be happy."

They continued on the road.

Buckeye was a small town, smaller than any Ellie had ever seen. It was a rural town, flat land all around with a dearth of clustered suburbs.

"Hold tight to those guns of yours, Ellie. Be ready for any trouble." Joel warned as he cautiously strode Callus past barns and houses.

"Joel, look. Wires!" Ellie notified him, pointing at several nail bombs in between a pass that was in front of them. Joel dismounted, and Ellie handed him a glass bottle. Joel, with all his might, threw the bottle at the wire snapping it. The bombs did not go up in a bang as other traps had, but simply fizzled. Joel guessed that despite the traps, this place had been abandoned for a long time and the traps had been reduced in effectiveness by the elements and time. Still, they would tread a bit more carefully. Joel walked, leading Callus by the reins, while Ellie sat on the horse.

"Look, Joel. More dead people." There was a house with the door ajar. Two skeletons in decayed clothes, one outside with shattered ribs exposed by a torn dress and another who was slumped over in the door way, a gaping hole where some of his bones should've been. Joel stopped the horse, and looked inside the house. In the hands of the skeleton was a note. Joel picked it up and gazed at it.

_Last night, I caught Seyton snooping around our water supply. I demanded what he was doing it. He just shrugged, gave me that "what me do wrong" look and said, "Just checking, Colbey. It's my shift today, make sure nothin' gone wrong with it." But then I notice that three jugs of our gasoline supply have gone missing. And later in the day, I found a diary of his that he dropped. What was inside shocked me. So in case anyone finds me and wonders why I myself was snooping in his house, this is wh_ Blood splatters ended the sentence.

_Careless shit of me to leave my crap lying around like that. But thanks, Colbey, for reminding me not to do that again. Too bad you can't hear it though… a pity since you were one of the prettier ones in this clusterfuck of a haven. You wouldn't understand though. The election was going in the wrong direction. Robbie and Jonah, they're just gonna tear what we managed apart. Someday, with either of them in charge, the infected or bandits are gonna come streamin' through. But with my plan… I can make things easier to manage. Fewer mouths to feed. Those who are standing will all understand once it flies in motion. And I guess this goes in the diary since I don't want anyone else here seeing this. Hmm, now, if only I can remember which door it was I rigged the shotgun behind. Out, Ed Seyton. _

"Bill, I've said a lot of bad things 'bout you, but at least you weren't enough of a dumbass to get killed by your own traps." Joel muttered. Then he raised his voice. "I'm going to check what's inside, Ellie. Don't go running off, okay?"

"Sure thing, Joel." Ellie give him the okay sign.

Joel entered Seyton's house. He noticed a map on a table first. It was a crude sketch of Buckeye, with several locations labeled and circled in varying marker colors. Houses that belonged to survivors labeled in green. Where things such as weapons and gasoline were stored. Locations of traps labeled in red, including tentative traps yet to be placed. Next to the map was Seyton's note to himself – finish booby trapping the house's perimeter (one shotgun door won't cut it). There were numerous wires throughout the house. He followed them upstairs. Several gallons of gasoline alongside a generator. Joel examined one of the gallons. At least the bastard was decent enough to leave them some gas. Joel then checked the basement of the house. Numerous cans of preserved foods were down there. Many personal belongings scattered throughout the house, like a TV and a record player. He then looked at the map. A building with a big circle, town hall. He would check that one out yet.

"Find anything, Joel?"

"Some stuff we could use. We'll hit this place later. For now, there's something else I want to check out."

* * *

"Jesus, Joel. Look at this mess. Did bandits do this?" Ellie gasped as they saw the clutter of bodies scattered around "town hall." Joel looked around, seeing the bullet holes embedded in opposite sides of the interior. He then remembered what the dead man had said about the election in his note.

"No, Ellie. I think they did this to themselves."

"Why, Joel?" Ellie asked. "You think that in a situation like this, they'd do everything they could to work together and stay alive."

"Sometimes, even after the end of the world, some people just got too much ego or paranoia for a commune like this to work." Joel said.

"Jeez, you think something like this is gonna happen to Tommy's place?"

"Not a chance in hell. What these folks were doing here was nothing close to the scale of what he's attempting."

There was a foul smell emanating throughout the house. Joel walked to the end of a hallway connected to the main room where the corpses were. "Good god…" He muttered as he saw a note that looked like it was pushed out from underneath a door.

_I think I broke the bathroom's inside doorknob! Please, somebody get me out of here! _So this was where that smell was emanating from.

"Sorry, no can do." Joel said and he returned to Ellie, who was sweeping over the main room to see if there was anything they could use.

"Find anything, Ellie?"

"Some bullets."

"Well, some bullets are better than no bullets."

"Are we leaving, Joel?"

"No Ellie, it's gettin' dark. We're heading back to that other house, Ellie. Hunker down for the night and we move on at first light."

* * *

After they let Callus rest in a small stable nearby, Joel pushed the skeletons out of the doorway and shut it. He kicked the shotgun trap away, watching it clatter on the ground and twirl away.

"Hey Ellie, check the basement, okay? I saw some jars down there. Maybe there's somethin' down there still good for dinner."

"Alright, Joel."

Joel headed upstairs as Ellie headed downstairs. He headed to the generator, filling it full with one of the gas containers. With three tugs, the generator vibrated and as Joel flicked a nearby light switch, the house stirred to life. He headed back downstairs. There was a moderately-sized TV in front of the beaten-up couch. He flicked it on with the remote. Of course, nothing but static. But Joel noticed a DVD player and its wires scattered about. They had been on the road together for a damn long time, and Ellie did deserve a special sort of treat.

"Hey Joel, whatcha doing?" Ellie asked as she emerged from the basement carrying a jar in her hands.

"Something special for you, Ellie."

"Is it a video game?" Ellie asked.

"Um… no. But the next best thing."

"Okay."

"Say Ellie, what did you pick for dinner?"

"Hope you like strawberries, Joel…"

* * *

"Mmm, tasted better than I thought they would." Joel tossed the emptied jar aside. "You full, Ellie?"

"As full as I can be in a place like this." Ellie nodded. "So what are we watching?"

"Let me see…" There was a nearby crate filled with DVDs that belonged to the former residents. Joel looked over it. A varied selection, to say the least. But thank God there were no signs of _Dawn of the Wolf _anywhere. He finally found something that Ellie might like. It was a hokey old school movie, but it was dumb and fun enough that Ellie might enjoy it. "Here's a good one…"

"Really? That title doesn't give off much of an impression… Was there any of those wolf movies in that box? I kind of want to see if they're as bad as you claim them to be…"

"Um…. no. Watch and give it a chance, Ellie."

So they watched. The picture quality of the TV was bad, and the screen flickered often. But it worked, at least.

"This is a good part, Ellie. The guy has just walked into the bank… Ellie?" Joel turned his attention away from the screen. Ellie had dozed off, fast and deep asleep. A bitter memory swept over Joel of a night just like this long ago and went away just as quickly as it had come.

"Well, bed-time for you, I guess…" She sure as hell wasn't his daughter, and he had tried to remind himself of that every step along the way since he had left Boston, but he finally decided that Ellie was the chance he had to make amends for failing Sarah that night.

* * *

After he carried Ellie up to a bedroom, Joel returned to the couch. He waited for the movie to finish, and then he switched off the TV.

Then he noticed something. Joel headed over to the record player. Several vinyl records were stacked in a pile underneath the stool on which it was propped.

"Might as well hear a song before I tune in myself." Joel said to himself as he flipped through the pile. "Goddamn it, where's all the country shit? No Cash, no Williams, not even Nelson. You expect me to listen to a Burnt Toast or Zephyr Brigade record? No way in hell…"

At the bottom of the pile, he finally found something he could take a quick listen to. It wasn't any of his favorites, and it was a depressing three minutes forty six seconds to listen to that probably didn't even mean what he thought it did, but it was a good song nonetheless. He set the record up on its B-side, hoping he remembered exactly how to do it. His father had showed him and Tommy how to do it once when they were kids. The record started to softly play the song.

_Just a perfect day  
Drink Sangria in the park  
And then later  
When it gets dark, we go home_

Just a perfect day  
Feed animals in the zoo  
Then later  
A movie, too, and then home

Oh, it's such a perfect day  
I'm glad I spent it with you  
Oh, such a perfect day  
You just keep me hanging on  
You just keep me hanging on

As the song finished its course, Joel sat for a few minutes silently in both reminiscence and contemplation.

_Just a perfect day  
You made me forget myself  
I thought I was  
Someone else, someone good_

* * *

Joel stopped in the doorway of the room where Ellie was sleeping.

"Hope you thought the same about today… baby girl."

And he walked away.


	4. Water Guns

**This is a semi-continuation of the last story.**

* * *

The place, judging from the sign that they passed on the way inside, had once been a vacation resort. Ellie had wanted to just ride by, urgent to get to the university as fast as they could, but Joel insisted that they make a small search for supplies. It had been a long ride from Jackson, and they still had not reached the University. The grizzled veteran knew that despite his young ward's eagerness, they would need to be prepared for what was ahead and the road back. So with a sigh, Ellie allowed Joel to veer Callus off the concrete road and onto the dirt path. Callus had just made his first clop into the clearing of derelict guest cabins when they heard the screams.

"Joel, look!"

"Shit! Take cover, Ellie!"

A dirty man, face caked with dirt and his beard mangy, burst out from a row of cabins with a magnum in a long-nailed hand screaming so loudly and high-pitched that Joel instantly guessed what was after him. The deranged croaking and moans confirmed it. Poor, dumb bastard Joel thought as he and Ellie leapt off Callus, hiding the horse behind one of the cabin walls. Screaming was only going to make it worse for him and a hell of a lot harder to escape he finished his thoughts as he pressed into cover against the cabin. Other survivors were bolting from cabin to cabin, firing wildly at their pursuers. Callus reared up but Ellie shushed him and tugged onto his reins to keep him from making too much of a racket as Joel peeked his head past the wall.

The man was firing at a pack of runners rushing him, his aim erratic and imprecise. He kept backing off as he fired, throwing his aim off even more. Joel could see in the distance ahead what looked like more dead humans, as well as a few fallen infected. He turned his eyes back to the running man. Without warning, a stalker strafed out from behind a cabin and leapt onto his back. The man went down earsplitting as the stalker clawed him. But then shotgun blasts entered the air and the death cries of infected followed. The stalker's midsection disappeared in a mist of red, sheared off by a powerful pellet. The remaining survivors battled the infected with guns and handheld weapons, even as they were swarmed.

"Jesus, Joel! It's total calamity!" Ellie whispered as she saw the carnage unfolding.

"Shh…" Joel told her. He pressed his ears against the wall, concentrating his hearing. From the sounds he got, he could estimate that both sides of the human-infected conflict were dropping rapidly. Joel heard a final screech from a stalker, followed by the sound of metal cutting flesh, and then all grew silent. Estimating that all the active infected had fallen, he decided to move at last and motioned for Ellie to follow him. "Stay behind me."

"Alright Joel." Joel tied Callus' reins to a nearby tree and the two walked towards the center of the aftershock. Three survivors were still standing, with the dead bodies of infected and comrade alike strewn about. Joel had hoped that maybe they were willing to engage in a bit of negotiation after going through hell like that, but his hopes dropped as their expressions instantly turned hostile upon seeing the two approaching them.

"What the fuck?"

"Freeloaders! Get them!" One of them in a trucker cap and padded jacket pulled out a pistol and being clicking away on the trigger, only for the sound of an empty click to come up.

"Put the gun down. Won't do you no good either how." Joel ordered him, but Trucker Cap gave him only a defiant "Fuck you, freeloader!" and charged him while popping out a pocketknife. Joel sighed and readied the shotgun, blowing Trucker Cap's head off.

"You motherfuckers better listen to him." Ellie warned.

"Aw crap… we're sorry!" One of the bandits dropped to his knees, his voice hysterical and panicked. "We didn't mean anythin' jus' overreacted, das all it was! Please don't kill us!"

"Sorry. I'm doing you a favor." Joel said as he noticed the fresh scratch marks on the beggar's arm.

"Fuck you then!" The beggar changed stances and grabbed his holstered gun. Joel's ire was instantly fired up as he saw that it was aimed towards Ellie rather than him. He slammed the butt of the shotgun against the beggar's bald head, splotches of blood staining the dirt as the man's head landed. As he stomped repeatedly on the stunned bandit, Joel felt a fury in his veins. It was a fury that he knew well, born of mixed grief and anger, one that had resurfaced since he left Boston.

"Jaysus! You monste-!" The last guy lifted his rifle but Ellie quickly threw a bottle at his face. "-MY EYES!" Clawing at his glass-laced face, the blinded bandit stumbled backwards until he tripped over an overgrown root. His neck landed on a cabin step, a swift crack as his head twisted.

"Shit Joel… what a freaking mess. Let's get out of here."

"Let's search first. Then we'll run."

"Fine, Joel."

* * *

As they got back on the main road, Ellie instantly struck up a conversation with Joel.

"So, back there… what was that place?"

"Infected nest, Ellie. You saw the spores in the mess hall, didn't you?" Joel replied.

"I meant before… you know, all this."

"A resort, probably. It's like a camp that people would come to with their families and stay at for a short time. They'd waste their time fishing, hiking, skiing, the list goes on."

"You ever go to one of these resorts with yours?" Ellie pried.

"I meant to, one day, in the winter when the slopes were real good… with Sarah and Tommy… but you know how that story ended." Joel answered, looking down at his watch as he said it.

"I'm sorry, Joel. You know, if…"

"No Ellie, nothing's wrong."

Ellie decided to change the topic regardless. "Find anything good back there, Joel?"

"Enough boxes of ammo and cans of soup to last us a few weeks." Joel replied. "What about you?"

"Um… well, I didn't really find any food that wasn't rotten or any boxes that weren't empty… but in one of the cabins, there were these…" Ellie reached into her backpack, and pulled out two large plastic squirt guns.

"Ellie… you know that our packs ain't infinite…" Joel said. "And I doubt squirtin' cold water is gonna be much help against infected."

"Yeah, I know. I'm not intending to lug them around with us to the university, but I thought that it would be fun… to you know, stop and have another quick bonding buddy moment, Joel. I'll get rid of them afterwards, I promise."

"You even know how these things work?" Joel asked. Incredulous… he hadn't seen any fucking water guns for two decades and judging by all the goddamn dust on the two Ellie was showing him as they rode, those had to be even older.

"Well, back in Boston when I was living at the boarding school, I had a pair just like these before Commander Dicknose took them from me and I kept trying to get back by sneaking into his office… but he'd always walk in at the last second and catch me." Ellie shook her head.

"So, you ever get your water guns back?" Joel asked as he focused on the road ahead, but simultaneously focusing his ears to find the sound of running water.

"Well… I did, but not by myself..." Ellie's voice slowed and she seemed hesitant to continue.

"It's okay if you don't want to tell me now, Ellie. Some other time, then." Joel reassured her. "So, why the sudden desire to blast me with water?"

"Hey, it's fun, isn't it? Is there a need for a deeper reason?" But judging by some of her words, and her reluctance to tell him how she got her old guns back, Joel guessed that maybe Ellie did have a deeper reason. But he wouldn't press her for them. Further inquiries could upset her, and Ellie quite reminded him of the daughter he once had. And no loving father deliberately upsets his daughter.

"Well kid, you got me there. But you know, even if these guns are just water squirtin', I don't think I'd have to heart in me to shoot you with 'em."

"Joel, just pretend you're Bill and you've just discovered me stealing from your candy stash!"

"Alright then, kid." Joel laughed.

* * *

As Callus took a sip from the pond water, Joel and Ellie filled up their water guns and pumped them ready.

"Ready for this, Joel?" Truth be told, he felt ridiculous. The hardened veteran of a post-pandemic world, now he was preparing to have a water gun fight with a teenage girl. But he was her escort, and if this silliness would make her happy for another day, then he might as well do it. "I'm warning you… I'm deadly with these things."

"Good to hear, Ellie, but today… Han shoots first."

"Wh-" Joel followed up his threat by unloading a stream of H20 in her face. As she laughed and wiped from water from her blinking eyes, Joel quickly sprinted for cover behind the nearest log.

"Oh, that's a dirty one, Joel!" Ellie chuckled as she scanned the area for him. "But that's the only freebie you're getting today!"

* * *

"Admit it, Joel." Ellie lightly elbowed his wet shirt in the ribs. "You ran out like that in the open on purpose."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Joel said as innocently as he could. "You're just a natural gunslinger with that thing."

"Really." Ellie replied. "But either way, Joel… thanks. We really shouldn't have done this, but…"

"It was no problem, Ellie."

"A shame we have to get rid of them now like I promised." Ellie tossed her gun aside.

"You know Ellie, if we go back to Tommy's after we finish whatever the Fireflies want us to do for them, maybe I can ask him or that scary wife of his to have a look around…"

"I would like that a lot, Joel."

"I'll make sure I won't forget it, no matter what goes down before then." Joel helped her back onto Callus. As he mounted himself, Joel looked back at the water guns, left on the forest ground. Who was it that said that the little things mattered the most? He had forgotten, but there was something else that he thought he had forgotten that maybe he felt again a few minutes ago. Joel looked down at his watch once more before galloping off with Ellie holding onto him tight. The old world had the most unexpected ways of re-manifesting itself to Joel.

As Joel rode, Ellie held onto him and looked back at the discarded water guns as well until they were long out of sight. She thought back to one enchanted evening not too long ago, an evening mere weeks before she had met Joel and Tess for the first time. Deep in her thoughts, Ellie's mind lingered on artifacts that she carried with her. Remnants of the dead. A girl's Firefly pendant, a boy's toy robot, and the switchblade. The switchblade, she pondered. In it were memories of someone she would never know beyond the writings the woman had made and the scant words of Marlene. Her thoughts made their way to her escort. He did not have to bring her this far, yet he still chose to. Even after Tommy became willing to take her off his hands. Even after he furiously told her that he knew she wasn't her daughter. And Ellie prayed that it would stay this way, that no matter what shit went down, he would never leave her behind like the rest.


	5. Year Zero

Returning home was no easy feat for me. Not when I had worked so hard to escape from that rusted ditch in the middle of the road in the first place. But it was winter break and I had no intention of staying at the dormitory after what had happened between me and Annie. She was where my glorious bump in the road had come tumbling down, a shaking of my pleasured stupor back into a stifling sense of reality. She was the uptown girl and I thought that nothing was going to stand in the way between us. She came from the rich folks who funneled her into the university on a check with a lot of zeroes, but Annie was a genuinely good girl. She was funny and sweet, full of surprises. I thought that we had a future together but she didn't see the same way about me. She found me empty and dour at the core and that she had tried to tolerate me but she couldn't do it anymore.

Our break-up was unceremonious, taking place outside of Choi's Chinese Express where they served some of the best damn Mongolian beef I ever had. I nodded uncomfortably to her, trying to hold back a mix of tears and anger, between clenched chopsticks gripping nothing over a platter of rice and Hunan chicken. But when we parted ways and I returned to my dorm, I lay on the ground of my dorm for half an hour softly sobbing. Blaming her, and then blaming myself for not being a better boyfriend.

She was right about the emptiness and dourness. Enthusiasm coming fresh out of high school had been replaced by cynicism and a lack of belief in anything as the first year of college floated on. I didn't know what sort of purpose I had anymore outside of slugging my way through exam days and counting out the time as the clock hanging on my way ticked every second away, wondering if things would be different tomorrow. I wanted to get out of this shell which I had enclosed myself, become a Renaissance man, and win back her heart even after the love of my life had thrown me out of her world. But at the same time, there was a voice in my head telling me that things were hopeless and that I should take shit as it came because in the end, dust begot us and we return to dust. I tried to tell it to shut up but my will to do so faded.

So I did what any irresponsible young man confused about his life would do.

I snuck out of the dorm for one night and headed to an older mate's apartment. Got high, drunk… everything that would've had the dean sending me straight out of college. But it didn't matter to me at that moment, even the risk of getting caught. I was just tired. Tired of all the pretensions, tired of the broken dreams. The weed and the booze helped me escape to another world, to forget about all my troubles and self-doubts for just a few hours in time. Hours that mercifully felt like days.

I found myself reminded of Macbeth's soliloquy from the fifth scene of the fifth act. Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing.

But when I woke up, I found that I did regret it and finally truly asked myself if I had done anything worthwhile since escaping the rust heap. So I made the fateful call back to the land of rust from whence I came. Asked my parents if they were willing to pay the air fare home.

They said yes.

So despite my earlier reservations about coming back, after Christmas Day, I was on the plane home quicker than a speeding bullet. Out of the shining mecca of the Pacific coast and back to the barren wastes of the middle of nowhere. In the span of a few hours in the air, and another few hours in the back of a taxicab dazed from another smoke that I had smuggled onto the airplane not really caring if I was caught while gazing at the stars above, I had to accept that I was home. Back where I started, no real lesson learned from my time away.

* * *

"Hey, Pete!" A familiar voice called out to me as the taxicab dropped me at the perimeter of town. I didn't even have to turn and see who it was to know who was calling me. He had been one of my buddies from the old days. But he was also one of those who never tried to escape the town. George stayed there even when the rest of us were trying to make our way to the coasts, to the cities where dreams were both made and crushed.

"George! How the fuck are you doing?" I greeted him, shaking his hand.

"Fucking-A, that's how I'm doing! College working out for you, city boy?" He asks.

"Not as well as I hope. My folks doing well?"

"Both of 'em. Although some folks who work at the mine are sayin' that your daddy's gotten sick. But hey, they the same folks who've said a lotta things that ain't true. Don't fret now, Pete. Sure your daddy's a fuckin-A as ever."

"Great. What about my sister?" The year I graduated she was a high school freshman and had just finished developing her breasts.

"Kelsey? She's even better. A real jealousy of the other gals. I hear all the guys at the high school are trying to get in her pants."

"Fuck… they better not pull that shit while I'm in town. So George, what are you doing? Those night-vision goggles?"

"Yeah, cost an entire months of savings and took forever to ship, but they were worth it. Now I can hunt all the elk I want 24/7." Of course he was hunting. That's all he ever really seemed to care about. Hunting other sentient breathing organisms with his high-powered scoped rifles. But I found myself jealous of him. He didn't move on, he stayed here doing the same shit, but George seems happy with what he has. Unlike me, feeling nothing and unsure of what would become of me when I returned to the shining night lights of the Pacific Coast. "Say Peter, wanna go pop some elk with me? I think I ordered an extra pair and it's somewhere my garage…"

"Some other time, George. I need to see my family first."

"Sure, sure. Just give me a holler if we cross again, Pete."

* * *

That night I ate with my family again for the first time since I skipped town for college. My parents were in a talkative mood, and I tried to answer them as best I could.

"So, Peter, how was the big city?" My mother asked me.

"I felt lost seeing how large it really was. TV, the movies, they never did really prepare me for the real thing."

"You never bothered calling us or doing Facetime." She said almost accusingly. Like she caught me stealing out of the cookie jar or tying the cat's tail in a knot.

"Well, it slipped my mind. I was overwhelmed, honest. By everything…"

"Understandable, son." My father chimed in. "So, you got a girlfriend or anything back west?"

"No." I didn't tell them about Annie. I wasn't ready to talk to anyone about her yet. That was my problem. I never really liked to share my problems. I kept them within me… brewing and troubling only me. "Still mining for coal, pop?"

"Right on, kiddo. We're drilling deep, and I think they found another place for us to mine. The place around it is supposed to be a bit crowded, damp, and dark, but hey, if it lets me put food on the table I'd mine it."

"Where's Kelsey? I ask."

"Out with buddies. At the town theater."

"Don't tell me they released another Dawn of the Wolf movie, pop."

"No, sumthin' else. Think she got herself a boyfriend. Watching some dick flicks. Y'know, like Firemen vs. Ninja."

That night, I nestled on my childhood bed. I didn't know how much I really missed this place.

At least here, I knew finally what I was. Middle of the road mediocrity that had tried to make something out of himself but failed.

* * *

I tried to get re-acclimated with the Hometown until I had to return to school. I faded in and out of local restaurants, sampling burgers with the burnt on the outside pink on the inside taste that only small places in the middle of nowhere can provide. I talked with Kelsey, my parents, as much as I could. But the same emptiness that now defined me began to seep its way into my conversations. They were beginning to get suspicious of me, and I felt that I could no longer tell them white lies soon. It sickened me, to lie to my own parents. To make them think that I was fine, that everything was fine, when it wasn't. I took George on his offer to go hunting, but during the day. We didn't bag anything big like a buck but we did take down a few birds. My father long ago taught me how to use a rifle in the woods behind our house and I thought that my skills with the gun would have receded. But to my surprise or maybe not, my gunmanship was still sharp.

"Are you alright?" My mother asked me one day.

"Yes. I'm perfectly fine."

"Well, you seem more withdrawn…" She did seem genuinely concerned about my well-being but as far as I was concerned then maybe I wasn't alright but there was nothing to do that I could change it or anything worth changing for.

"No, everything's perfectly fine."

Everything seemed fine. Vapid, shallow, as only my barren outlook could perceive it, but fine nonetheless.

Until the day before New Year's Eve, when my father and several of his fellow miners emerged from the pits sick from something they had caught down there.

* * *

On New Year's Eve it was just the two of us alone in the house, me and Kelsey. My mother was out of the house, off to visit our father in the town hospital. I fixed Kelsey the dinner that night. We sat in uncomfortable silence around the dinner table.

"You think he's going to be alright?"

"No shit he's going to be alright."

"But don't you think it's weird? That it wasn't just him but lot of the other guys from the mine in the same day as well?"

"Probably just the air below Earth doing weird shit to the brain."

"Okay, but" The phone at that moment began to ring. I answered it. It was mother.

"Mom? What is it?"

"Just… just lock the door to the house and cover the windows." She seemed to be trying to control something, show you that nothing was wrong even thought there was something wrong. I knew the feeling too well. "Don't let anyone in. I'll… I'll shout when I get back."

"Wait… what? Mom, is something wrong?" I asked her.

"No, Peter, nothing's wrong. Look after your sister. Mommy loves yo-" She was cut off. No. Not just cut off. A scream. Her own screams. The screams of my mother that sent an electrifying chill through my veins. Well shit. I let the phone hang in silence for a few minutes, listening to the beeping and carnage that was unfolding before my ears until I put it back up.

"Has something happened to Mom?" Kelsey asked me.

"No, Kelsey, nothing's wrong. She's just going to be staying overnight with pop, that's all. Everything's going to be okay with them."

Oh god. Something bad had just happened to our mother and here I was lying to my sister about it. What… what was becoming of me? I felt something break past the vacant sign and feared that I was ill. Not physically… but in a different sense of ill.

* * *

"Peter… what are you doing with Daddy's guns?" Kelsey asked me as I felt the shotgun in my hands. I had never shot anything like this before... but if the situation came down to it, I hoped that I knew how to handle the damn thing. "Here, this is for you." I told her and tossed her a smaller pistol.

"What, Peter? What the hell is happening?" Kelsey demanded. "I don't know how to use a gun!"

"Nothing. Nothing is happening."

"Then why are you going through Daddy's guns?"

"A hunch, that's what." I tried to keep calm with her.

I took all the shells I could find and placed them in my pocket.

"Daddy's going to be very mad when he finds out you messed with his stuff, Peter."

If there was still a daddy to get mad at me, whatever had happened at the hospital. I didn't know yet… how could any of us?

* * *

At around eight AM there was a loud knocking at the door. Whoever it was did not call out, like mother said it was. So I stood a few inches from the locked door, pointing father's shotgun at it.

"Who is it?" I yelled at the door.

"Open up! It's me, George!" George's voice was frantic. I lowered my weapon and cautiously peeled the door back. George was dressed in his hunting gear, night vision goggles and all. His cheeks looked red and he was panting for breath.

"George… what the hell is happening?" I ask him.

"Jeezus, nobody knows. Something bad's gone down at the hospital. At the cops in town are at it right now!"

"Christ… my folks were back there!"

"Shit, Pete! We gotta go get 'em!"

"Peter, what's happen- George? What the hell are you doing here with that gun?"

"Kelsey…" Before I could tell her to stay inside there was a loud bump against the back of the house, like something was trying to break in. And in the distance, the sound of a mewling cat as something tore it in half. "…get in George's car."

"What? But didn't you say we have to stay inside earlie"

"Listen, the house isn't as secure as I thought it was! Just get in!" Somewhat forcibly, I pushed my younger sister into the backseat of George's dusty sedan.

"Got any ammo for that shottie, Pete?" George asked me as he started the engine. "I can always lend ya some."

I took out all the shells that I was carrying on me. "Not the motherload but I think it should be enough. I mean, what's the worse that's happening over there? The Chinese invasion?"

"Yer a bit of a funnier guy since ya went to college, Pe- Jeezus, what the hell is that?" I saw it but I couldn't believe it. Charging directly into our headlights was a man. I recognized him immediately. It was Jimmy Plant, one of the town's fellow hunting enthusiasts who made the forest kind of a second home. There was something wrong with him. Blood was dribbling from his nose, his fingernails were coated with more of the red stuff. His eyeballs frightened me the most. I remembered Jimmy as having pale blue eyes, but something had changed him. His eyeballs were a glowing hue of cracked red. And to make things worse, the bastard was raving incoherently. Then he charged onto the hood of George's sedan, began clawing at the glass. Bastard was turning his hands to ground beef but he was actually cracking the glass. Kelsey was screaming, George was frantically asking Jimmy what the hell was wrong with him but I knew what had to be done. It was either Jimmy or us.

Some of the glass that shattered went into my face but I closed my eyes before the shards could do anything serious to them. Jimmy screamed as the slug hit him square in the chest and he tumbled off.

"Jeezus, Pete, I think you just shot up one of my hunting budd" There was a crunch as George's sedan rolled over Jimmy. "And 'ah think that I jus' ran over him."

"Peter, what the hell was wrong with him?"

"I don't know." I replied to Kelsey. But deep down, I think I knew what was wrong with him. That somehow it was connected to what was wrong with my father and his fellow miners. That I had a sinking feeling… despair… what had happened to my mother and there would be no rescue or family reunion tonight. "He just must've ate some… wrong mushrooms in the woods or something."

"Yeah, I always warned him 'bout that." George shook his head. "But I thought he knew his stuff about 'shrooms."

"We all fuck up at least once, George."

"You killed him, Pete."

"I know." He was the first human being that I had ever murdered. Not even twenty yet and I already was a killer. But I didn't feel as disturbed as I should have, about the weight of snapping one's cord prematurely. He was trying to get us and instead I got him. I felt more disturbed at how nonchalant I felt about the killing after being thrust in a situation where it had become necessary.

"Peter… Mom & Dad will be okay, right?" Kelsey asked me. I finally decided to tell her the truth.

"I don't know."

* * *

"Alright… we should be nearin' the hospice soon… holy crap!" George gasped as the hospital came into view. The hospital, aside from Police HQ and the high school, was the only two story building in town. And right now, that second floor was in flames. My god, I then realized. My mother had been on the second floor where my dad was when she called me. Then we saw the barricade formed by the police cars. And then I heard something coming from inside the hospital as we got out. Screams… and gunshots. All three of us ran up to the police blockade. An officer instantly walked up to us and shooed us off.

"Listen… officer, we've got family up there!" I told him.

"I know, but you can't hang around here!" He stated, holding his ground.

"What the hell is going on up there?"

"I don't know! It was a routine inspection by the nurses of some of the sick miners when some of them started to go cra"

"Oh my god! They're getting out!" An officer gripping his pistol shouted. "Hold your ground!" An older voice interjected. I turned around and saw scrambling out of the door several hospital-gown clad crazies who looked just like Jimmy. They were raving, twitching, waving their arms and wildly thrashing their heads.

"Stand down and put your hands behind your head!" Another policeman with a mic shouted at the crazies. "Don't come any closer! I repeat… or we open fir-ARGH!" He screamed as one of the crazies leapt onto him. The crazy patient pounded the poor policeman with his fists as the policeman tried to fight him off before more of the crazies flooded onto him. Holy shit… I saw that they were actually biting into him. Like freaking zombies out of a Romero flick.

"Jaysus!" George screamed as he lifted his rifle but the officer pointed his own pistol at him and George lowered it. "We don't need any goddamn wannabe Rambos fucking things up here even more!"

The police began to fire. Some of the crazies fell but others made it past the bullets and began to scramble over the cars.

"Get the fuck out of here!" The officer who had shooed us yelled. "Head to the pharmacy!" He cried one final time before joining his fellow officers.

* * *

The officer at Bertie's let us in without much of a hassle. He only forced us to turn our guns, much to George's protest. The pharmacy was modestly large, with six different departments of stuff they sold and an entire soda counter where the employees behind the counter used to spoon out ice cream or whip up milkshakes. There were a lot of other people in there, including several kids, but it didn't seem like the entire town. I asked the copper where the rest of the town was. He explained that they were either trying to ward off the crazed patients at the hospital or asleep. I asked him what they would do about the people who were asleep and told him about Jimmy Plant. Jimmy wasn't a miner but he still was like one of those crazies. It wasn't only the miners in the hospital who had gone loco. The cop said they were trying their best to evacuate the whole town but their manpower was too far divided between holding up the fort and setting up forts.

"Did you get our guns back?" George asked as I returned to our corner behind the soda counter.

"No."

"Dad… did you see him back there at the hospital?"

"No." I put my arm around Kelsey's shoulder, tried to tell her that everything would be alright when the sun rose, but even then I knew that my notion would mean nothing.

But still… we all needed a hope in hell to cling onto, didn't we? What else keeps all us miserable sentient beings from leaping off the nearest skyscraper if there isn't something pushing us forward? I decided then to take another walk around the pharmacy. See if there was anyone else that I recognized. I ran into Bertie, who still was manning the place all these years later.

"Hey kid. Didn't expect to see you ever again round these parts." Bertie was fat and balding, in that Santa sort of way and not the pedo sort of way. He had become a mentor of sorts for the many kids that used to hang around these parts when they had nothing better to do after school, but like our parents, he simply faded into the background as we came into our own in the teenage years.

"Hi Bertie. Business been good?"

"Declining, kid. People round here keep moving out and those who stay ain't makin' babies anymore. Say, want a soda or something?"

"I'm sorry." I thought about the crushed corpse with the bullet hole in his chest outside of my childhood home right now. "Not exactly in the mood."

"You know what's happening out there? Cops all of a sudden came knocking on my door and put me in charge of all these townfolks."

"Bad shit, Bertie. Really bad shit."

"What sorta shit?"

"You might have to sacrifice some of your stock. We may need it." I told him that some of people were acting strange. Mumbling nonsense, eyes glowing red as blood streamed from orifices, attacking everyone they saw. At first Bertie didn't look like he was buying it. But then he looked at some of the other people huddled in the store. I noticed then that some of them had been bandaged and that there were noticeable stains and scratches on the areas which were still bare. So he agreed to let me have a look around and that what we took he would mark off as surplus.

It made me uncomfortable how everyone watched us two and talked in hushed whispers. And I couldn't help but stare at a child with a bandaged arm. The child seemed sick. His mother kept putting her hand over his head, like he had a fever. Boxes of pills from the pharmacy counter in the back had been scattered around them.

I asked her how he got the bandage.

She told me it was none of my business.

* * *

"Got you something to eat, Kels." I tossed her a bag of chips. Parents told me that she had been on a health trip lately, refusing to eat anything that might change her figure slightly like meat or cream, but I guess that the stress of what had just happened changed her stance on consumption. She scarfed down the chips.

Along my way from the aisles to the counter I picked up several articles that could be improvised into weaponry just as deadly as the confiscated guns. Who knew that the local pharmacy could also sell you a killing spree? With a roll of duct tape, I bound two shiny kitchen knives to a wooden plank. I had also found a lighter, but no spray paint. But to compensate, I had taken some bottles of booze and multiple rags. Keep in mind, I had no idea how to actually cook up fire bottles but as the movies always showed, as well as actual damn science, the human body sucked against a raging wall of fire. I just hoped that how the movies showed how to do it was the right way, lest I incinerate us all.

"I don't think the copper up front is gonna approve of yous making that."

"Copper took away all our goddamn guns. You think if those things get in here, he alone can hold 'em off?"

"Hold 'em off with a big stick? You serious?"

"Hey, a big stick's better than just my fists of fury, ain't it?"

At that moment there was a loud banging on the glass on the entry door. Some of the people huddled amongst the aisles began to scream. I rushed to the front of the store with George and Bertie to see what it was. The cop at the front was huddling in several of his fellow officers. We all could hear gunshots getting closer.

"Jayzus! Give us our guns back!" George yelled to the cop as the running crazies popped into sight.

"No! We can handle this, citizen!" The cop reassured us as he pulled the last of his fellow officers in. "Quick, seal off this door and the windows!" The cops in the pharmacy moved quickly, locking the door shut and sealing off all the glass with planks of wood. Right before they nailed in the final plank the crazies finally hit. The force knocked back the cops with the hammer, and the hand of the crazy started to claw its way inside. It snatched the heel of an officer and started to pull him out through the glass it had broken.

"Shit! Shit! Get 'im offa me!" The cop whipped out his pistol but the other cops grabbed him and tried to tug him off. It seemed like the tug of war between the one hand of the howling thing outside and the grunting cops would've torn the poor uniformed boy apart before Bertie grabbed a fallen hammer and smashed it against the thing's hand. There was an inhuman shriek from outside as the hand receded, and the boards were quickly put up.

We could hear the glass breaking. The things would be throwing themselves against the barricade for the entire night. But everyone in the pharmacy seemed confident enough that the crap we had erected would last for the night. Tomorrow, New Year's Day, that would be the problem. Would we try to hold out, waiting for the goddamn National Guard or even better, Superman to arrive and save us? Or would we be desperate to make a run for it? As usual, a lot of conflicting thoughts about what lay in the future were on my mind. I returned to the soda counter, sitting on one of the fading red stools. I held an empty cup in my hand, pretended that I was drinking something. Not ice cream soda or a malt… something much harder, something that could drown out all the messed up shit which had happened on my little sojourn back home.

"Are you alright, Kelsey?"

"No… no… I'm not alright… I'm scared."

"That's okay. So am I."

"Hey, Pete." George sat down next to me. He had removed his night vision goggles, and his face was drooping. "What the hell is happening?"

"I don't know. People… normal people we were just talking to yesterday are going crazy and killing everybody. What do you think caused all of it?"

"Maybe… just maybe… it's the government. Like 'dey developed some sorta secret bio weapon like on teevee and 'dey chose us here to experiment it on." He shook his head, and I guessed that not even he believed in the full validity of that statement.

"I know the federal gov is in a lousy shape and all, but I don't think that testing out bioweapons on their own citizens is number one on their priority list."

"Then what do you think is causin' people ta' start actin' like goddamn zombies?"

"I don't know. But whatever it is… it sure as hell wasn't something the Hawaiian had the SoD cook up."

Maybe the time had come at last. When there was no more room in hell.

I didn't dream that night.

There was only a veil of dark. Formless, unfeeling, a cover of nothingness.

* * *

My reverie of nothingness was broken early the next day. In part by the lights of the drugstore, in part by the screams, in part by the hands of George shaking me back to reality. I thought as my eyes flickered open that some poor shits were trapped right outside and that we could only be forced to listen to their death screams as the maniacs tore them apart. But the further I came to, I realized that the screams were actually coming from inside the store.

"Wake up, Pete!" He continued to shake me even after my eyes were wide open.

"Alright, alright, I'm awake- what the hell?"

"Yeah, George. I hoped that yesterday was just a horrible dream…" Kelsey muttered.

"Grab that stick of yours and let's hurry! Some shit's going up front!"

The front of the store was absolute pandemonium. I instinctively got in front of my younger sister. No one was helping the woman pinned to the ground. I recognized her as the one who had told me to mind my own business. The bandaged kid was on top of her, but he was no longer a doting son. Instead, he was a son clawing at his own mother as she struggled to hold him off even as his jaws gnashed mere inches from her face. She screamed for him to stop. The cops looked like they were uncertain. They had the opportunity to take the shot but none of them really wanted to be the one who had the capped kid on their records. And we could still hear the crazies outside hitting at our barricade. Sooner or later, something would have to give… but now we were trapped inside with one of them. George and I moved quickly. I smashed the blunt side of my stick against the kid's neck. It squealed and it stopped trying to claw at its mother. I got ready to hit it again, this time with the sharpened ends, but the mother screamed and she pushed me out of the way.

"Are you crazy! You're going to kill him!"

George and Bertie slammed him into one of the aisles with a heavy crate by shoving it across the floor. Some of the other people joined them in pushing the crate to pin down the boy, and one of the cops finally got in him and cuffed the crazy boy to a nearby display pole. The boy continued to thrash at us, despite being trapped. His mother was damn near hysterical at this point. She tried to run for him but the cops held her back.

"What happened to him?" One of the cops asked her.

"Nothin… nothing..."

"Listen, lady." George told her. "He was fine yesterday but now he gone and turned into one of those things… what if there's more of us like him? We can't go outside since they right on our doorstep..."

She told us that she and the boy had been visiting his father in the hospital. Right when the craziness started. The boy had been bitten on the arm. She managed to get him out before the real shit started and she took him here. She thought she had gotten the arm disinfected but… everything else she said afterwards was indecipherable due to hysterics. Goddamn… it was just like the fucking zombie apocalypse as the movies always said the craziness spread.

"Shit…" George looked at the cops. "You fellas were fightin' those things…"

"Oh fuck!" The one who had let us in said. "Officer Welker got one right on the shoulder!"

"Where the hell is Officer Welker now?" Bertie asked, who was now brandishing a large mop rather menacingly.

"Damn it… he went to the john late nigh" An officer charged out of the door at the back of the pharmacy. He stumbled his way through the chaotic aisles but it was clear that the law abiding officer was long gone. Officer Welker wildly flailed his arms as he ran towards us. One of the officers tried to get off a shot but the crazy cop was on him faster than he could fire and the gun discharged. The officer screamed and there was a sudden foul scent in the pharmacy air but his fellow cops blasted Welker off. But before we could catch our breath…

There was the sound of wood breaking.

Screaming of the damned, gnashing of teeth.

We saw where the gun discharged.

"Fuck… I think now would be a good time to give us our guns back." I told the cops as the crazed people began to claw their way inside the pharmacy. The head officer reluctantly tossed me, George, and Bertie three revolvers. We battled the crazies with our bullets and at first I thought that we could hold them off long enough. But their numbers were relentless. And as the bodies began to pile up, the door began to give way. Soon enough, we would be overrun. It was hopeless to stay and fight.

"Pete… you take your sister and run. I'll stay here with the coppers and cover ya!" George told me.

"C'mon, George. Let them handle this shit! It's suicide to stay here!" I replied.

"Well, they need all the guns they can get right now and I think I'm a gunman, ain't I?" George said as he fired his revolver at the hand of a maniac.

"Alright, George…" I took Kelsey by her hand and we ran through the store towards the back alongside Bertie and the other survivors. We ushered through the backdoor, into the alleyway. Outside… it was pandemonium as the rest. Gunshots were ringing out everywhere. There was someone screaming 24/7. Multiple fires had been started or were starting. Some of the cops who had been bitten turned as well, and looks like some of the sleeping populace had been added to the crazy populace. Those of us who had guns covered the passage of those who didn't. It was no man for himself business here. We looked out for each other, and we did our best to keep all of us alive.

I thought my lungs would burst due to lack of oxygen as I ran at any minute.

It's always the girl who trips in the movies.

But instead it was me, after I threw my last Molotov backwards to create a firewall to cut off the direct path between us and the crazies.

After eating a bit of dirt, I struggled to pull myself up. "Leave me! Just get yourself out of here!" I yelled at Bertie. Everyone listened but my sister. She ran back to pull me up. Oh god, oh god, I scrambled to find the revolver. Where had it fallen? There was only the stick which I had strapped to my back. Then I heard Kelsey gasp. I turned and saw who she was looking at.

Our father.

He had turned just like the rest. Reddened eyes, bleeding nose, cracked lips. His skin had turned a sickening hue. His hair was disheveled. His chin and beard were stained with dried blood. But we recognized him instantly. And for a split second, he looked like he did too. There was a glimmer of regret and horror in his eyes… like he could see what he was doing but he had no control of his body anymore, and then that look was replaced by frenzied murder. He charged at us and he was on top of Kelsey before she could run off. She screamed and he screamed.

I knew what I was about to do.

I didn't know what to say. Sorry that I never called before this week? Sorry that I wasn't there to be with you and mom in your true final moments together? Sorry that I was about to bash out your brains with a big stick? None of the apologies in the world would alleviate the weight of my actions. I swung my stick, knocking him off. He hissed at me… the voice still sounded like my father's, but it was no longer his. It only made me swing my stick harder, mutilate his face even further.

There was one consoling thought. Maybe if there was a bit of my dad still in there… I was freeing him so he could be on his way to heaven or someplace better than what he had experienced in his last hours.

When it was done… I turned and walked back to Kelsey. I found the revolver on the way and picked it up. Fat lot of help it was. I held her in my arms and comforted her. She was softly crying.

"They're dead, Peter… mom and dad… they're dead…"

"Kels… Kels… listen to me… are you alright, sis?" I tried to make her better. But I saw in front of us, the town as it burned and tore itself apart, that nothing would be alright for either of us in the near future.

"No, Peter. I'm not." She showed me her arm. "Daddy… before he got me onto the ground… he… Daddy.."

"Jesus… no." I mutter.

"Please… Peter… I don't wanna die but I also don't wanna become one of them like Daddy…"

"It's okay, Kelsey. I won't let the monsters get you."

I tried to finish myself off as well but she was the last bullet. I screamed, the first outright anger I had shown in years. I hadn't been this pissed since ever, not even when Annie broke up with me. I tossed the emptied gun aside and lay my sister on the ground. I could hear the crazies running for me in the distance. I prayed that George, my buddy, was still alive. I prayed that old Bertie and the other people who still were themselves in this hell on earth had made it out. I thought that it would be goners for me, that I would be joining Kelsey and the folks in a few short minutes. I gripped my stick. It would break in a few more hits but that didn't matter. I was sick of running. I had nothing to live for anymore, even less than what I had in those pathetic final hours stoned in college before I came home. I would go down with my fists.

But then the helicopters and trucks roared in. A battalion of soldiers in black popped up. The most heavily armored soldiers I've ever seen, covered in head to toe in black body armor that definitely wasn't Kevlar. They all carried assault rifles and wore a gas mask beneath their helmet. I wasn't relieved to see salvation arrive at last. Rather, I was fucking pissed. Had they been just a few hours sooner, that whole mess evacuating the pharmacy could've been avoided. I didn't even know what had become of George after we fled, but I knew for certain that my sister would still be alive. Maybe even earlier, so would my mother. As the soldiers marched past me, into the town, I approached one of them yelling obscenities.

"What the fuck took you bastards so long?"

"Civilian spotted. Unclear if he's infected or not." She spoke into a radio. She was silent as I continued to verbally assault her until an order arrived over the other end. "Understood, sir."

"Down, civilian. On the ground, hands on your knees." She ordered.

"You know what? Fuck you and your orders! Every last thing I cared about is dead, and you want me to be your little bi"

The butt end of a rifle really fucking hurt.

* * *

So that's how I ended up here.

They've kept me locked up in this empty, padded room for what seems like days. But I know that's it just been hours. But when there's nothing but your mind to play with, time becomes strange. There's not a single piece of furniture around besides the shitter, nothing but a locked door and a blackened one-way mirror. Are they going to release me? I don't know. But they do seem willing to talk at least. When I banged loudly on the one-way glass, they were agreeable enough to hand me these sheets of paper and the pen on which I am writing write now. Fancy pen, five colors for the price of one. Ink is shitty quality, but I feel like there's a lot that I've got to write about so at least I'll run out slower than I would with one pen. When the man in the white coat and his armored guards carrying guns stopped to hand me this stuff, I managed to ask Dr. Bowman (name on his tag, at least) some Qs about what happened yesterday.

"What happened yesterday?"

"Sorry. Top-secret, government access only."

"Of course it is… Doc, I was there. I lost my entire fucking family to those… things. Why bother hiding the truth from those of us who already know shit happened?"

"Fine." He talked to me about a new strain of a fungus I had never heard about. Cordyceps or some shit. How the strain had mutated to target the brain cells of human and warp them, leading to symptoms like increased aggressiveness and loss of restraint. How it started when people began to eat crops that had been infected with a different strain of the fungus. He said that there already had been isolated outbreaks before my hometown's. Even one on a mid-air plane had happened. But the world governments had done a bang up job of making sure that these stayed isolated, with the survivors ferried off to facilities like this for research. A fungus. Not a virus like I thought, not like how the movies always made shit like this go down.

"Are you going to let me out?"

"Sorry, can't do that. It's a matter of national, no scratch that, international security."

"Doc, c'mon. You had the goons here strip search me along with everyone else they rounded up when I got here. There were no bite marks on me… I can't be infected… I'm… I'm not a zombie, alright?"

"Zombie? Hmph… yes, the infected act just like the movies but this is no Night of the Living Dead we're talking about here. From past cases, we've been able to divulge that the fungus is also able to spread itself through airborne spores…"

"I didn't breath in any goddamn spores, I swear!"

"And as for the name… well, those infected with the cordyceps are still alive, just not totally in control of themselves anymore. The big guns at FEDRA are already making names for what to call infected if we're forced to go public."

"If you're forced to go public? Did you see what those things did to my hometown, you asshole?" I screamed the last part at him, prompting the guards to step forward but he waved them away. I hadn't meant to yell or even call him an asshole but for a second there I lost control. I don't know why. He has to be lying. It's all some sort of cruel trick. I'm not a zombie or infected or whatever. I'm still me. I'm human. I have to be. But I feel sicker by the minute.

"Yes, we did and we do sympathize with your losses. But what you don't understand is that nationwide panic will do even more harm. FEDRA has to work things out first. That's why we haven't disposed of you yet. You are a special case. You've lasted for longer than the average infected specimen. Maybe if you keep it up, maybe we can develop a vaccine or cure for the CBI to prevent what happened in your hometown from happening on a larger scale."

"Jesus Christ, man. Quit saying that! I'm not infected! Just let me out of here and I'll show you!"

"So you say."

And then he left.

It was hopeless to argue anymore. But I know I'm not infected. I wasn't bitten and I didn't breath in any goddamn spores. I could've made another racket until they finally got fed up, shot me, and dumped me in a river nearby so I didn't have to deal with any of their shady secret government bullshit but hey I became convinced that I was probably going . Maybe I actually have found a new meaning for myself after all. So I've resigned myself to writing down everything that happened to me New Year's Day until I figure out how to get out of this place. I know that these pages probably won't make it out and that the scientists will probably have disposed of me in a ditch before I can finish writing down everything, but I can still dream the dream of being the bastard who sets off the spark that exposes how deep of a shit the world is drowning in. The spark that smothers those blissfully unaware in great panic.

There is still a voice tugging at the back of my head, growing stronger as I start to feel sicker. Oh god, why am I feeling sick? I'm not infected… I'm not going to become one of those things and die like the rest. I do my best to scream at my own accusations in my mind, begging for it to shut up. But it's too strong and like the night of my break-up with Annie Miller, I found myself in a wreck on the floor yelling at myself. Back to year zero for me. No lesson learned. Do I force myself to face the possibility that hell has arrived, that we who walk in the year Anno Domini 2013 the last of us who knew the world as it was before the heavens closed their doors to us? I no longer believed in the words of Christ the Redeemer, but I hoped to whatever higher power there was that my family was at least in the nice half of afterlife, if it existed. As for me, I believed in none of that… so I bid my farewells in my mind. I had nowhere to fly to after I perished.

Maybe I would kill myself. I had always contemplated suicide as of late, but I could never bring myself to do it. I thought that perhaps something would present itself to give a purpose to my wayward life, but it never came around. And in the days that recently passed, what did I have to live for? I saw what those things had did to just a single town. What would happen if the entire globe was like that? Crazy runners cluttering the streets, government and society falling apart, families tearing each other to pieces, the whole bundle of works. I somehow doubted that FEDRA, UN, whatever was in on this CBI would be able to contain the pandemic or the truth long enough to save the world. Too bad, aside from the toilet, that there was nothing in here to do it with.

After I finish writing, I'll resign myself to sitting against the wall. Sit back, count the clocks that tell the time and lose my mind piece by piece. Or mayhap I can do something more proactive, despite it being sheer suicide. Even if I make it out of this room, this place seems too heavily guarded to make escape to the real world an easy feat. But if I can get my hands on an assault rifle, maybe I can at least wipe the doc's smug smile off his face.

I gaze around the room, looking for any potential exits.

It will be suicide, either way, staying put or trying to bust out.

But I guess I'll do it. Who cares if I die? I don't.

I have nothing left to lose.


	6. Vanishing Grace

**This is a semi-sequel to the first story published in this anthology. It is another adaptation of in-game events written a style sort of similar to that of Cormac McCarthy's novel The Road. **

* * *

When only a hazy fragment of winter hung in the desolate air, the man and girl left behind the frozen wastes and headed south. As the last crystals of snow melted, it became apparent that for both of them, it was not only the weather and landscape that changed. The girl felt a growing emptiness within her, withdrawing the cheer that had once rung in her voice. She barely glanced at the joke books and comics as they headed south. Each passing day the two of them talked less and less. The girl thought she had seen everything cruel the world had to throw at them. But in the frozen hell, she found out that she was wrong. She remembered what almost happened to her at that maniac's hands. And she learned what happens when one has everything to lose and what they will do to survive. The journey had changed her with every step. No longer was she the girl who had rode on carousels and played in photo booths. The cruel dawn began to cast its light upon her. But as her wall built itself up, the man started to let his long-erect barrier crumble. What began to fill the void that tore itself open decades ago wasn't as angelic but she was the chance he had. To redeem his failures and begin anew when their long journey ended its course.

The end was near. But the girl found herself lost in thought as her eyes lingered upon the highway mural. Her body was motionless except for the strands of red hair blowing in the cool spring breeze. Upon the surface that had not been consumed by the wilderness was the etching of a buck deer. How long ago had it been since she hunted a deer like that? And her thoughts turned to memories of loss. Each loss slowly took its toll on her, and one-by-one she recounted them all. There was a twinge of guilt that what made her special allowed her to live and not them. The possibility that when she and the man finally found the elusive Fireflies that the world's curse could be absolved did little to alleviate the weight of their flickering lights. Cure or no cure, she still would've been too late to save those who were left behind. If she was the key to preventing anyone else from being left behind… she thought of the man who had been to hell and beyond to bring her this far… so be it. But it still wouldn't make a difference that so many she cared about had left her behind already. Abruptly, the voice of the man shook her from her contemplation.

Ellie! He called out to her. She turned to look at him, and their end destination came into full view. Abandoned skyscrapers still stood, even as the world around them had moved on. Long stretches of power lines that had long lost all spark. Cars littered the road ahead of them, their tires melted with paint-chipped metal giving way to rust. Torn banners that gave testament to the safe zone that once stood here before it too like the cars were abandoned. Did you hear me?

She told him the truth. No. What?

Look. The man motioned to her with his hand. He stood near a blue sign that was below two green highway signs that read Salt Lake City and Tunnel East. Hospital. This is where we get off. Let's go, kiddo. The girl nodded her head and she began to walk with him. The man and the girl crossed the decayed overpass. Walking past the forgotten husks of cars, walking past spots where the manmade concrete had given way to patches of grass and the bright white petals of small flowers in bloom. The man continued to talk to her as they walked and the calm air glided past the soft skin of the cheeks.

Heh. You feel that breeze? I tell you, on a day like this, I'd just sit on my porch and pick away at my six-string. As they passed a tarnished blue car. Y'know, once we're done with this whole thing, I'm gonna teach you how to play guitar. A school of cawing black crows flew over the bridge in front of them and away from their sight. Yeah, I reckon you'd really like that.

What do you say, huh? He asked the girl. He noticed her silence as she clutched the straps of her backpack walking forward. Ellie, I'm talking to you.

Oh. She remembered what he was just talking about. She knew she would have loved to. The girl enjoyed learning about and experiencing firsthand the artifacts that the old world forgot to bury when it died. But her mind didn't want to think about the old world. Too much heaviness weighed down on it as each step brought them closer to the journey's end. And she didn't really feel like talking to her companion and friend either. Yeah, sure. That sounds great.

The man and girl continued on the road, another flock of birds flying away from their perch on the corroded shells as their presence loomed. The man noticed that a large RV was in front of them, a growth of vines overtaking its painted body. With a downcast apathy, he saw fallen down upon its open steps a skeleton of a woman in clothes that had not yet decayed into nothingness. The man stepped over the skeleton, into the RV. The girl did not follow him. He saw items that had once belonged to the inhabitants of the car. Pills. Bottles of alcohol. Cloth rags and boxes of granulated sugar. On top of the counter opposite the supplies was a photograph. A smiling couple, with two children not much different from his lost daughter, in front of a grassy plain as forest pines loomed behind them. He flipped over the photograph. Two words were sketched on it. Forgive Us.

Before he even looked at what had been covered by bloodstained sheets in the back of the RV, he knew what was underneath. And all he could mutter as he remembered the frantic struggle they all had endured trying to stay alive in the hectic weeks that followed Day Zero was God…

The man grabbed a few scraps of metal that were hanging in cabinet. He did his best not to look at the two small, still forms that lay atop of dried blood. There was a baseball bat back there as well but he ignored it. He ran out of the RV and back to the girl as fast as he could. She was standing in front of a bus advertisement. It had been mostly covered up by vines and moss but they could still see the jumbo jet and the words Air West.

I dreamt about flying the other night. She said.

Oh yeah?

Yeah.

He himself hadn't thought about the years when mankind still took to the skies for a long time. Go on, tell me about it.

She brushed a strand of hair from her eyes. So, I'm on this big plane full of people. She tried to reenact the dream with motions of her head and hands. And everyone is screaming and yelling 'cause the plane's going down. So I walked to the cockpit, open the door, there's no pilot. I tried to use the controls but obviously I have no clue how to fly a plane… and right before we crash, I wake up. She walked away from the bus. I've never been on a plane, isn't that weird?

Well, you know, dreams are weird.

The man and girl walked down the path, now going downwards as the bridge connected itself to the streets below. They passed a schoolbus on the way down. Both tried hard not to think about what may have been inside. As they made their way off the highway, they could see signs of the military force that once occupied these paths.

Look at that. Another city. Another abandoned quarantine zone. The path ahead of them was blocked by the wreckage of a tour bus that lodged its way in between the concrete walls that were laced with barbed wire. They had come across many obstacles like these on their way here. The man climbed atop of a car rammed next to the bus and made his way to its rooftop. He noticed looming in the distance, sandwiched between taller buildings. The sun still shined off its glass windows. A large cross was erected on its surface.

There's that hospital that Firefly mentioned. C'mon, kiddo. She grunted as she pulled herself onto the bus and landed on the grounds of the former quarantine zone.

Ahead of them was a large building. Letters on it read Logan James Bus Station. The doors had fallen off their hinges, leaving the entrance agape.

Maybe we cut through here, huh? He told her. They entered the Bus Station. The entire building was cluttered with wreckage as if a tornado had gone through it, with a great tree planted in the center undisturbed. Through broken windows grew moss and vines that crept into the once-human domains. Neglected maps tacked to billboards. Posters advertising the burger joints in town. Through glass-less frames in the windows shone in sunlight. The man looked around. Some more pills and powder that he turned into bombs. Next to a discarded suitcase was a note a man wrote to his wife in the early days. We didn't have a clue back then, the man remembered as he finished reading it. Above a poster advertising Zion National Park was a ledge. The man could see the small legs of a ladder peeking over.

Well, we could use that ladder.

Here we go.

The man propped his back against the wall and readied himself to push the girl up. It was a process they had done many times on this journey, and she responded quicker than a cat running to the dinner bowl each time he required her to help him. But in this hour, things were different. She did not come to him to help him bring the ladder down. It had been bugging him since the moment they got to this city. This was definitely not the same girl that had fought with him through Pittsburgh or the girl who rode with him from his brother's dam to the university. The girl he knew never seemed so withdrawn or reluctant to joke around or have a chat.

Ellie. He called to her as he sighed. His voice echoed through the empty bus station.

What?

The ladder. C'mon.

Right. She got off the empty bench where she had been sitting and strode past him without saying another word.

Using all his strength, he pushed the girl up onto the ledge. The man watched the girl as she dragged the ladder towards him. But before she could lower it fully, the girl turned her head. She saw something. What the hell could it be? The man wondered. Was it the Fireflies?

Oh my god. All thoughts of the ladder in her mind were abandoned. She dropped it and it crashed in front of the man.

What is it? Ellie? He asked as he picked up the ladder and climbed up. As he got up, she had only a few vague words for him.

You gotta see this! And the man heard in her voice instantly not the cold girl he had just exchanged passing words with. There was a glimmer of the eager youth that he had known before the first days of spring came around.

What is it? The hell is it? He asked her again as he followed her through the derelict hallways on the second floor of the bus station. She didn't answer him but she kept looking out the dirty windows as she passed them.

Are you kidding me? She said to herself. They had reached a room where the wall had been blown out. The man thought he saw something pass its head through the gap and his heart too skipped a beat. No way… it couldn't be, not after all these years of neglect. He had to be seein' things again, like the early days when he was still fighting his way through the grief both mentally and physically. The man took a left after the girl past a row of smashed vending machines, onto a covered bridge.

C'mon! Hurry up! She beckoned for him to quicken his pace and not wanting to disappoint his charge, the man obliged. Ahead of them, there was a small door that led to another room with the wall missing. And as the man stepped his way into the room, he knew for sure that he wasn't seein' things.

A giraffe. After all these years, the zoo animals were still alive. And the man remembered. His daughter had a stuffed toy just like one of these back in her room. Even as she got to the age when children started to discard old playthings like that in favor of digital entertainment, the girl had kept it in her room.

Branches crumpled as leaves fell stories to the ground below when the giraffe ate from them. The man and the girl slowly approached the beast.

Shh, don't scare it.

I won't. I won't.

The giraffe turned its head, looking at them. For a second, the girl worried that the man hadn't lived up to his promise, that the animal would bolt away. But it merely flicked its tail and turned its head back to the leaves, biting on them again. The man was reaching for the giraffe's long spectacled neck.

What are you doing?

It's all right, come here. He called for her. The man was patting the animal gently, brushing its fur. The giraffe lapped out its tongue and continued to eat, undisturbed by the more personal presence the man and girl were bringing to it.

Hurry up. And the girl touched the giraffe's head.

Hey there. She said to it.

As it finally walked away, the girl turned to the man. So fucking cool. Aw, she commented on its moving away. Where's it off to? Here, c'mon. Let's go.

Slow down, kiddo.

C'mon. She replied.

Hurry up, c'mon, c'mon. Her voice echoed down the stairway as she scurried upwards. The man only smiled to himself as they sprinted upwards and onto the balcony.

Oh man, the girl said as they saw the full herd in the distance. Wow, look at those things. The giraffes were far from their native habitats in the ruins of this city, but they had found a home regardless. The man and girl stood on the balcony, their rapid journey grounded to a halt at last as they watched the giraffes.

Just watching.

For a moment, none of it mattered. The losses that they had endured and the sins that they had committed, brushed to the side. The man and girl stood transfixed, just watching the herd fade away into the horizon. It was a moment that should have lasted forever but the world as it was decreed that it be only a few sweet minutes. The two stood in awed silence, each caught up in silent contemplation and remembrance until the man finally talked to the girl. It was a repeat of words that had been previously uttered.

Is it everything you were hopin' for?

It's got its ups and downs, but… you can't deny the view though.

The man walked away from the girl, who continued to watch the giraffes. There was another set of stairs exiting the balcony, hidden behind another door. His hand grasped the handle, but he lingered and hesitated in pulling it open. He had already lost one daughter to this world. Who knew what sort of horrors waited for them in between here and the hospital? He knew that if he lost another… two wounds in his body that would never be stitched shut no matter how much antiseptic and bandage were applied. The girl was now standing in front of him, noticing his discomfort.

We don't have to do you this. You know that, right?

What's the other option? She asked him bewildered.

Go back to Tommy's. Be done with this whole damn thing.

She shook her head. After all we've been through, after everything I've done, it can't be for nothing. It hurt the girl to say this to the man. She knew that he had only her best interests in mind, that he wanted to prevent what had happened to his daughter from happening to her. But she had to do this. For both herself and the friends whom both of them had lost along the way. Her guilt that they had lived while the others had not would not let her rest even behind the safe walls of the man's brother's sanctuary until something was done to quench it. This was the only thing she could think of and it would be shame to turn back now after making it through the frozen hell. There was no halfway mark for her. Besides, she was certain that it would be just a few quick shots and x-rays and the Fireflies would be happily handing her back to the man's custody afterwards. The two of them would most certainly have the time to go anywhere after that. She walked past the man, pushing the door open and headed into the dark mouth of the stairway.

The man turned his head and looked back at the herd. The last giraffe was walking away into the wild growth. With it, the last grace that they had felt in the moment vanished. No more giraffes. Just another empty lot reclaimed by nature as the ruins of the old world surrounded it. Feelings of innocence and nostalgia replaced once more by the urgency and foreboding that had tugged at him each step of the journey before this brief but lovely intermission spent alone with the girl. Clenching his heart, the man breathed heavily and followed the girl down the stairs.


	7. A Midsummer Night's Dream

We're in the middle of summer. The sun sets latest on these days.

I wait for hours at the watchtower, gripping my rifle and peering through the scope, even after the sun has long set. Dreading that any second now, a shot will ring out and the town… my town will be overrun. No, not by what made us this way. Out here, it's not the infected that we have to worry about. Rather… it's ourselves that poses the greatest threat. It's a lesson that I learned personally the hard way. Years ago, before I settled down as the rare optimistic veteran, I witnessed firsthand my own goddamn family turn into the monsters we tried so hard to escape from. All in the name of what, survival? But what was worth surviving for in the manner we did?

The bandits grow bolder and bolder with each day. They know we'd let them join our settlement peacefully, like we have do so for many of the stragglers that make their way to this part of Wyoming. But these twenty years have warped us all. They want everything we built here, and they want it now without having to share it with us. Just the other day we lost two of our best to an ambush on the outskirts of the dam.

But this night, the shot is never fired and the mass of attackers never arrives. I force myself to leave the post and stagger back to my home. Push myself past the front door and underneath wrinkled, stained sheets. My eyes hang open in the lightless dim of the bedroom, both the rifle and pistol at grabbing distance. Maria has settled in quicker than me, already deep in sleep. How I wish it would be as easy to sleep as that.

Another day, another night. It's hard to go on in a world full of shit like this, but if there's one smart thing my brother told me these past couple of years, it's that no matter what shit goes down you keep finding things to fight for. I don't know about him, if he's even still alive or clicker food, but I found something worth fighting for. Even with the lights of twenty-first century civilization dimming more and more every day, the end hasn't come yet.

We can make things better.

Hell, we already have, even if it's just a scarce starting percentage of what we're going to do.

With that reassuring though, I drift to sleep at last.

But my dreams are not as uplifting.

* * *

Although they've been happening less and less since the first day we got the power running, I've still been having the nightmares often. Most of the time, I'm fortunate not enough to remember a thing about what happened in them when I wake up, but even if I can't remember what I dreamt about the memories of what really happened remain to plague me.

This particular nightmare is a recurring one. Not one that I've had the pleasure of forgetting. It starts as it always does. The first snows of winter are starting to fall. We had been drifting through the Deep South for years now, and the first thing we learned was that winter was always going to be the hardest. And to make it through to the thawing of spring, you had to be goddamn prepared with the right supplies. But sometimes, even if you scavenged every inch within the whole county, you couldn't find enough to support your whole group. And that's when Joel decided to start hunting for their supplies.

It wasn't the first time Joel did one of these raids. But it was my first time joining them hunting. Joel kept me out of the first couple of raids, letting me stay behind at camp to guard our stash of shit. Many of the raids were against other groups of survivors as heavily armed or even better than we were. I was the only kin Joel had left, as we never did find out what happened to our folks, and after burying Sarah I think it would've broken Joel completely to bury me as well. That fact was the only thing that encouraged me to tag along as the two of us decayed further. Our fellow survivors weren't too happy. They knew what a good shot I was. Sometimes Joel joked, back in the early days when he was still capable of joking, that ninety-nine percent of our group's infected kills came from my revolver. Questioned why the hell was I twiddling my thumbs back at camp while they did the risky hard work? After being accused of playing favorites and faced with mutiny, Joel forced to accompany him.

The plan Joel had was straight forward. These were the early days, when the prospect of being holed up within the Quarantine Zones was hell of a lot better than sticking it out on the outside, even after FEDRA began to mow down everyone trying to get in. And in the early days, it was more than just a handful of folks that could bring themselves to help a stranger in need. The road that we camped near eventually led to Baton Rouge. Everything was in place, just waiting to be set in motion.

The bus was long, dangling from the precipice of a hill. We had fastened a manner of objects such as rods with the ends sharpened to act as rams to the grille of the bus. There were four of us ready to push the bus, waiting for the signal. Aside from Joel, there were also two others who had drifted along with us named Eric and Arne. They both were dependable fellows, but we could never tell what thoughts lay in their heads, whether it was a Mets cap or bushy beard thoughts were hidden behind.

"How long is it?" Arne asked, looking at an imaginary watch.

"Soon." Eric told him.

"Joel… are you so sure we just can't trade with 'em? I mean, from all your other raids, we got plenty of surplus"

"In this world, Tommy, there ain't no goddamn thing as surplus."

A female in our group, Shannon I think her name was, hidden behind a cluster of cars driven off the road into the forest. There were more of our group down there, waiting with their guns and killing devices fastened together from bottles or nails. And eventually, two pickup trucks came along. There was a small cluster of survivors riding in the back along the edges, supplies clustered in between them. They didn't seem to be carrying anything as heavy as us. With Eric's rifle, the toughest thing I could spot was a ten millimeter in a survivor's bandaged hand.

Shannon stumbled out from behind the cars. She had put behind several layers of rags underneath her shirt to give off the illusion she was pregnant. She stumbled forward with a fake limp, as if she was being chased from something and was badly wounded.

The first truck screeched to a stop. And that's when Shannon whipped out her shorty. And the others popped out from their hiding places. We saw the glass of the front window shatter accompanied by a symphony of screaming. The driver of the second truck pushed down the pedal hard. And then we pushed the bus down the hill.

* * *

"Oh my god…" I recall muttering. A man clad from head to toe in body armor trying to usher two of the children away from the ambush met a fiery grave as one of our people flung a Molotov. Their screams in my nightmare, especially the kids, remain as vivid and loud as I remember.

"Pleasepleaseplease" One of their survivors was trying to crawl away from Joel. His legs had been shot to shit. His arms frantically clawing for a weapon. "Youcantdothisyoucantdothis"

"I sure as hell am." Joel advanced on him.

"Kidsbacktherewehavekidsbackthere… please!" The man kept shouting at Joel, begging for their lives. "Take it, take everything! Just let us out of here! I have a fucking daughter, for God's sake!"

"Yeah? Well, tough luck. So did I." Joel raised his machete and the man's scream was cut short as his neck was split in half.

"God damn it, Joel." I cursed underneath my breath. I ran towards him, dodging bullets and obscenities.

"Ohmigod you monster!" A redhaired woman, holding a cowering little girl in her arms, cried at him as tears streamed down their cheeks. "You killed him! You killed him!"

Joel stood over them. He kicked the woman's pistol from her hands. She screamed. I could hear the bones break even from my distance.

"Please…" She pleaded with Joel. I was at his side now. There was scant space between the barrel of his shotgun and the two of them. She gave him the look. It was a look that I was to become accustomed to more with every raid that Joel brought me on. The last desperate gleam of the eyes before the head is smashed in.

Joel pondered their words, looking at the kid once. Then he opened his mouth. "You'll just come after us."

"Jesus Christ!" I cried out loud as he pulled the trigger and their blood splattered over our clothes.

"You bastards!" Shots. Joel and I both dove for cover behind an abandoned Toyota. Another one of the body-armor clad survivors, his right eye covered by a black eyepatch. "You killed us all, you fucking bastards!"

With another shot, I heard Joel grunt. A bullet caught him in the side. Eyepatch Man was getting closer. I hadn't killed anyone at all during the raid. Had I known, would I have still done it? But Joel had not become the monster of the story yet. He was still my big brother. The man who kept me alive. I still clung onto his words about survival. And right now there was a man out there trying to take out me and my family.

The shot hit him square in his other eye.

The man in the eyepatch lay sprawled on the bloodied road.

"Nice shootin', Eastwood." Joel tells me.

"Yeah, whatever. Try not to bleed out on me, Joel..."

"Hell. It's nothing a pair of pliers and anesthetic won't fix. They all dead, Tommy?"

"Yeah."

"Good. Let's see what they were carrying."

"Whatever you say, Joel." As I carry Joel up, I look around. Absolute fucking chaos. And worst of all, I felt that I was the only person here that was disturbed by the it all, from the burning shells of the pick-ups to the bullet-riddled bodies of children.

* * *

"Good work, Texans. Shit we got is sure to last us through January." Eric patted me on the back as he and Arne walked past, carrying bundles of stripped clothing with them.

"Are you sure that was goddamn necessary? All of this?" I scream at Joel as we carried boxes of looted goods back to camp. I point at the bandages on his torso. The blood on our clothes. The emptied cartridges. I glance back at the carnage one last time.

"It's your first hunt, Tommy. You'll get used to it."

"Fucking kids, Joel. We murdered fucking kids. For what? An extra can of tomato soup?"

"We're doing them a favor, Tommy. This world ain't a place for fucking kids anymore."

"Jesus Christ, Joel. You just blew them away without a bit of hesitation. What the hell are you thinking? Sarah would"

Without warning, Joel set down his crate.

Then he decked me. I dropped my box, shaking it open. Cans of soup rolled out as I forced myself up. I rubbed my cheek. I could taste blood, and I would probably get a canker sore, but no teeth were loose at least. I looked up at Joel. His eyes were downright murderous, full of rage and grief I hadn't seen since the day we buried Sarah.

"Don't you ever fucking dare use Sarah against me like that again."

* * *

The nightmare then jumps ahead of time, a fast-forward montage of my downward spiral as I accompanied Joel. I never got used to the hunting, contrary to what Joel said. It just wasn't right. They were just people trying to eke their way in a world that no longer made sense. Despite everything Joel said about we being goddamn survivors just like them, I knew things were different. We were the bad guys in this story. And even as a kid, I never wanted to be the robber in the game. But I tried to stomach it. Joel was doing it for me, wasn't he? The two of us, brothers to the end, sticking it out. But what were we sticking it out for? It wasn't just me that was troubled about the hunting. Shannon killed herself, along with three others.

I should've done it too. But I still couldn't leave behind Joel, even if he started to act weary of my presence with each raid…

And one day, when spring came around, I encountered them while scouting for infected. We had heard about them on the emergency radio as the cities fell under the cloak of quarantine. Joel had spat as he heard about them. Called them a pack of butterfly chasers that were all bound to end up riddled with holes or chewed up by a clicker. But as I set my gun down, surrounded by rifle tips, and stood amazed before the woman I would come to know as Marlene I knew that I had found another thing that Joel was full of shit about.

These were people that had come together and were going to try to make things good again.

And what did Joel do? He was just a fucking nihilist at this point. Wading from raid to raid through a sea of dead bodies, unfeeling and uncaring who he dragged to the bottom of hell with him. This wasn't the big brother I knew. Not the one who I spent the best summers of my childhood with reenacting the latest summer blockbuster in the backyard with or the caring hardworking father I went camping with. Joel had become just as bad as the military who shot down his daughter and the infected who had made hell a place on Earth.

In that instant, I knew what I was to do. I could redeem myself.

I announced to the group I was leaving them for the Fireflies.

Joel didn't take the announcement well. We argued back and forth. He called me an idiot, that I was dead to him if I joined the Fireflies. We were in a stand-off, both of us willing to shed the blood of family in that moment. I begged him to come with me. That I could redeem the two of us of everything we did. The world could be brought back to the way it was. Joel snapped back, saying that there was nothing to be redeemed. The world he knew was never coming back, and even if it did, it wouldn't be the same. And in the end, I decided that I finally put up with enough of his fucking nihilism and his fucking hunting.

"I don't ever want to see your goddamned face again."

With that, I begin to walk off.

But I then hear Joel say something. "You can bet your ass on that, Tommy."

And the last thing I hear is the shotgun fire.

* * *

I wake up sweating. For a moment, I am gripped with the most purest of frights. My entire body is paralyzed. My nerves are panting but I can't get my legs or arms to move. But I continue to push. I tell myself that it was just a nightmare. I haven't see Joel in so many goddamned years and he never considered firing on me, even when I told him to go to hell. And with a breath of relief, I push my neck up. The dark of the room is strangely reassuring. Maria continues to silently sleep away next to me.

I walk out of the house, putting on my jacket and strapping on my revolver. I look at what we have built, Maria and the rest of us. Joel said it could never be done, but here it is. A seed of the old world blossoming again. One day, it shall be safe. The bandits will be fought back for good, the power will never go out again. I've got a long day of work, no scratch that, probably long months of work ahead of me, but it will be done. I look forward to it. Perhaps when I finish the job, I will have finally redeemed myself and maybe then these nightmares will finally stop.

Then I find myself thinking of Joel. I think about the photograph I keep in a room at the dam. A portrait of a more innocent world, a grain of sand trapped in the middle of the hourglass. A smiling father with a triumphant little girl in his arms. A world that was taken from us piece by piece. My thoughts linger on my niece. Joel blamed himself entirely. But I was also my fault, I could have been faster, but he would never take my word.

Another thing that separated the two of us comes to mind. I could never stay mad at anyone, even him, long.

I find that I wish that both of them were here with me right now. But I don't think I'll ever be seeing Joel again. That he really will never show his goddamned face to me again. We headed in opposite directions. I still wonder what became of him and the group when I have nothing else to think about.

What's become of Joel is a coin toss. What happens to the last of us in this world goes only two ways. But I know Joel better than anyone else. And if I had to make my guess, he's still finding something to survive for, no matter how decrepit it may be.

But if he's dead…

I hope that if there is a heaven, and if he couldn't get in, they'd at least let him say hello to her once more.


	8. The Safest Place to Hide is in Sanity

Man, when the mushroom apocalypse hit, it totally was a bummer for me, cause y'know, I had been climbing my way to the top with no signs of stopping. Wait? You don't know who I am? Ah, I see. Yeah, everyone knew me back in the good 'ol days when all we had to worry about regarding mushrooms was that asshat who always ordered them on our pizzas and not worry about them eating us. When your pizza gets up and starts eating you, that's always a big big bummer. And with twenty years of that shit, I guess it's easy to forget about the age of YouTube and rock and roll.

My name is… was, I suppose, Mitchell Greaves. I was the head of a rock band called Crispy Rotten Apple Pies, or C.R.A.P. as we spelled it out on our album covers. And I was on my way to becoming the King of Rock and Roll stardom, the John of a new generation, when all the shit went down… My agent assured me that I was bound to be the king, despite him saying that to every single band under our label. I'm sure he meant it most for me!

So the last thing I most clearly remember before the outbreak was playing our tenth show with sold-out tickets in a row in Texas. Yep, I remember it clearly. The four of us on the stage, pretending to play our instruments and me pretending to sing as someone in the back played the studio recordings on the loudspeaker system while our hipster scum audience cheered. Come to think of it, it wasn't even a stage. It was the trashcan in the backlot of a foreclosed Pizza Donuts restaurant. And our audience wasn't even hipsters. Well, at least not the type that can speak.

Once we came to, I actually was pretty depressed since we hadn't actually gotten any money from this concert. For some strange reason, everything just up and vanished. I mean, our groupies were gone, even the blow-up doll. Our agent and manager just up and vanished too, like with all our money that we had gotten from other shows. True, the most we had made on tours up to that day could probably buy out only the entirety of a dollar menu, but it was still our money, gained from our original music! I mean, all our songs were covers of songs by famous old bands with dead lead singers, but don't give me that jazz. We put our own unique spin on them!

Since we alone and stranded in Texas, me and the boys decided to split up for the rest of the day to go and find some coins and a payphone. Yeah, for some reason, all our cell phones were missing too and the only money we had on us were hundred dollar bills. We would've used them, but phone booths don't give change and that like blows. Furthermore, there ain't no dollar or card slots on phone booths.

I was heading down a dark alleyway, looking for someone to mug since there always is inexplicably that one vulnerable inexperienced fool who goes down these dark alleyways when I heard a voice. I whirled my head around and saw that it was a little girl, nearly half my size. I was going over the ethics of mugging this sweet looking little thing and was about to make my moves when she spoke first. Her voice was like an angel.

"Looking for something, big guy?"

"Um, if you're one of those, like that movie… no." I shook my head, made a big no-no with my hands.

"Of course not. But I do need some money, if you're willing to pay for it." She reached into her pocket, and pulled out a small pouch. Unzipping the drawstring, whatever was inside was shining gold. So bright, I couldn't make out what it was but its draw was so alluring that I could not bring my eyes away…

"What… what is that?"

She smiled. "Hardcore drugs."

I should've known better, but the glow… I was addicted to these "hardcore drugs" already and I hadn't even taken them yet. I should've asked her for a sample at least, but instantly I found myself ripping off all my money and jewelry and shoveling them into that preteen drug pusher's small tender palms.

She ran off thanking me, and talking about her dad's birthday or something. And I was left holding a small pouch of "hardcore drugs" in the alleyway.

And before I could regain control of myself, I had already sprinkled all the hardcore drugs over the pavement. Instantly, my face was buried in them, snorting away. My god… the feeling I experienced as I entered my ultrahigh… it was pure nirvana! The blood in my veins burned hot with the force of the golden ecstasy… in that moment, I knew that I was invincible and that anything could be done! And fueled by the power of these hardcore drugs, I set off to show the world who I was.

* * *

When I staggered back to the motel room, all the teeth in the left side of my mouth had been knocked out and I had been stripped of all my clothing except my underwear. My bandmates were already inside, being pleasured by prostitutes or injecting heroin. Pft, heroin. After experiencing the sheer heaven of the hardcore drugs, I was never going back to that simple peasant trash.

"So, anyone find any quarters?"

"No." They all said, looking rather guilty, even as the bass player was being blown off by the hired help.

"I guess this means we're stuck here then."

"But it's as any a fine place to be stuck in." The drummer said as he started to overdose. We ignored the white stuff dribbling out of his nose, and the sight of his eyeballs rolling back. We were all sure that the OD would just be a temporary impediment. And with that thought, we all went to bed.

* * *

We were woken up by a crash in the night. Well, three of us. The hookers had all left, and our drummer looked kind of dead. I mean, he didn't even wake up when I kicked him in the balls. But we weren't particularly saddened by his passing. I mean, he was just the drummer, and they're kinda replaceable in this sort of business. Somebody had left the TV on, and it was switched to the news. The news lady was in front of something that was on fire.

"We've received reports that victims of the infection show signs of increased aggression"

Then some police looking guys came running in screaming about gas leaks. Then the stuff on the TV screen blew up and faded into static.

"Well…" The guitarist muttered. "I'm sure that was nothing really serious."

"Yeah, news channels pull made up BS like this as stunts all the time. Even a YouTuber can make more realistic explosions that that." I added.

"Hey man, I think I have some coke left. You wanna snort it before we go looking for quarters again?"

"Nah, coke ain't rad anymore. I found something new… better than even new coke…" I said, remembering full well the bliss of hardcore drugs.

"Fine, then. Your los" There was a loud boom from somewhere outside. I staggered over to the window. Looked like someone was blowing stuff up for fun or something, as the fireball flared up and settled down. But as usual, I was sure that it was nothing serious. Then something else threw itself against the window. I jumped back. That thing shrieked, but we just stared at it. It was some nut in a hospital gown with red eyes and a bloody nose. It pounded its hands against the glass of our window, and suddenly it broke.

Wow, they really were going the full mile with this ratings stunt. The crazy person tumbled in, and instantly rushed at the person directly ahead of it. The guitarist, who was just stumbling out of his bed, stark naked. Instantly, the guitarist reacted and jumped at the guy with the deadliest weapon he had on him right now. He spread his legs open wide and with a twist, he whacked the window-breaker on the cheek with it.

"Check it out, man? Who's the boss?" Our guitarist flexed his muscles, of which he didn't really have any. He flashed a smile, his teeth all yellow and rotting. "Tell me you got all that on cameraargh!" The window breaker didn't take kind to be whacked in the face like that. He was trying to claw the guitarist and bite him, the guitarist holding the dude away only by a sliver. I was starting to think that maybe that shit on the TV wasn't faked after all.

"Man, the guitarist's fucked." The bassist said unmoved, just watching the guitarist struggle with the crazy dude.

"You think we should save him?"

"And put ourselves at risk? Please, what year do you think this is?"

"Well, if it was the drummer, you might have a point. But this is the guitarist we're talking about."

"Shit, you're right."

And with that, I grabbed the drummer's sticks. With them, I started smashing the crazy dude on the backside of his head harder than I had ever smashed anything before. When I had finished smashing, he was sprawled out on the carpet with his brains leaking out.

"Oh thank you, Mitchell!" The guitarist was kissing my feet.

"I think I finally figured out what's going on!" The bassist chimed in.

"What?"

"Zombies! And obviously, we have to- oh God, he's been bitten!" The bassist pointed wildly at a splotch of red stuff on the guitarist's shoulders.

"Wait, wait, wait!" The guitarist begged. "I… uh, keep ketchup packets on me for good luck! One of 'em must've popped and spilled while I was" The bassist punched him out.

"I'm sorry, guitar guy, but I watched that movie. Every time someone says that they're always the guy who's actually the zombie!"

"What are we going to do?"

"We put him down the most humane way we can… by beating his head in."

"Sure. Sounds humane to me."

I grabbed his guitar and handed it to the bassist.

* * *

"Hmm…" I sniffed the splotch on his arm. I then noticed some packets tumbling out of his pockets. "Maybe it really was just ketchup."

We got dressed and made sure not to step in any of the blood or brain fluid on the carpet. We grabbed the bass, since it was the only good instrument we had left and it sure would suck to have to buy a new one when we got back home since after all we already had to buy a new guitarist and drummer. I could hear fires burning in the distance, and cars honking. People streamed by the parking lot of the guitar, some of them holding children or bags of stuff. They were screaming and more crazy people were chasing them. Man, whatever those people had smoked I sure as hell was glad that wasn't what the weird girl had sold me.

"Man, we gotta get out of this place." The bassist said. He busted the window of a nearby car. The alarms started to beep, and some of the crazy dudes turned their attention to us. They started to run towards us.

"Wait, man."

"What, Graves?"

"I gotta go to the bathroom."

"Fine, make it quick."

"You wanna come with me? I mean…"

"No, I think I'll be fine."

I did it quickly.

When I finished my business, the crazy dudes were already on the bassist. He screamed as they tore him apart. Well, shit. Did those bastards know how long it took for me to find all of them? Now, I had to do it all again. I quickly ran past the thrashing body and expanding trail of blood. I ran for a while through the city, and everything looked like it was on fire or being killed.

On my way out of the city, I think I saw these two guys off the path. There was this dead army looking guy nearby, and one of them was holding something in his arms and seemed to be sobbing. I didn't see what it was, but wow, what an unmanly wuss. I wondered what the hell was eating those two folks.

* * *

Well, one thing led to another. I eventually found out that there were these fungi that were making people crazy, called Cordyceps. Suddenly, life didn't seem so awesomely radical anymore. Instead of playing instruments or singing, I spent all my days and nights just running around, trying to stay alive. Only doing it for real wasn't as catchy as the Bee Gees song. And again… one thing leads to another.

Pursued by another pack of those things through an abandoned store, my group and I forgot to check for spores – causing us to run through an entire mist of 'em without our gas masks on. And just to solidify my fate, some of those "runners" caught up to us and managed to take a small bite out of my upper leg. That was like a total bummer, for all of us. Totally kicked the rad for good out of our lives. Well, out of their lives.

There were only enough bullets to account for them, not me. So I guess that was both a rad and not-rad moment.

By the time I stopped crying and cursing the world, which was about a week later, I noticed that something was off. Everyone I knew who got infected only lasted a day before the fungus made them crazy. But I had lasted a whole week, and the only thing that hurt was my lungs and tearducts from all the crying and cursing. How could I still be in control of myself? I looked at a mirror. Just like a runner, the infection was starting to show signs all over my body. I should've been struggling for my life right there, fighting futilely against the infection, but instead I could feel my mind fighting back. Then I remembered.

The hardcore drugs.

Of course.

They had allowed my mind to transcend to a higher plane of thinking and existence that allowed my mind and spirit to remain who I was even as my physical body was lost to the Cordyceps. Well, this seemed cool at first, but it really wasn't. You see, the cool part about being in a rock band is that you really got to know your buds, and having friends is a cool thing. But when you're infected, nobody wants to be your friend. Everyone "normal" simply shoots at you, and everyone like you is such an attention whore. I mean, I'm in front of them trying to talk B-ball, and she's just covering up her face mumbling about how much it hurts. Ok, when we became stalkers, it actually was sort of fun. For the first hour, at least. After that, perpetual hide and seek gets kinda lame-o. And when the fungus truly took effect, yeah, everyone besides me returned to the same old BS.

Being blind sorta sucked at first, but it turned out pretty cool once I got the hang of echolocation. I felt like Daredevil, my favorite superhero as a kid. If I still had a functioning dick, my my would it be in some rather intense places...

As I had little to do besides meander about for these past twenty years and occasionally eat, I settled down for a while and just thought, reflecting back on the life I led back when things were fab. I ultimately realized that I had wasted my talents and potential for a life of shallow hedonism. Well, no more. Even in this form, I realized I was still capable of great things. And as such, the old Mitchell who believed in his old gain was dead. It may have taken an infection for me to realize this, but I'll be damned if I failed now. The new me was one who would put the needs of others before himself! And this is how I got to this current sit- ow, will you assholes please stop shooting me? I'm trying to explain myself to you!

Alright, listen, I may not give off the most of initial appearances but if you'd just take the moment to stop and listen to m- Jesus Christ, that magnum round fucking hurt! Listen assholes, I may be kinda fungi-armored at the moment, but that does not mean I'm indestructible or invulnerable! Christ, is this how you regular folks repay altruism these days? All I tried to do was open that safe for you! I killed all those ugly military-soundin' fellows you guys called Fireflies for you, didn't I?

Look, I was just trying to help. Quit shooting me! Wow, a spiked stick. You people really have no limit, do you? And you didn't have to call me a bloater either! Yes, I spent a great deal of my life living off nothing but Pizza Hut and Mountain Dew, but I made a good deal to exercise afterwards! Some of us are conscious about our weight, you know! Wait… wait… OH FREAK IT'S FUCKING FIRE! ALRIGHT YOU BASTARDS, LOOKS LIKE I'M GOING TO HAVE TO SPORE YOU INTO SOME COMMON SENSE!

Hey you, don't you see what I just lobbed into your buddies over there? Quit hitting me with that stick! Look, I don't really want to hit you, but you're giving me no choice! If you would just politely sit back and listen to me as I explain myself oh look what you've done! I've accidentally lashed out and broken your neck. When will you people learn? You're all dead now, and I've accidentally burnt my toes.

But despite today's failure, my quest goes on. I will roam this land, searching far and wide, for people like these unfortunate folks who are caught in a jiffy. Like those who can't get a jar of pickles open or those who need to get a car moving. And using my immense strength and powers, I shall help them solve those problems. And the world shall finally see that not all us murderous mushroom heads are as bad as the papers make us seem! Um, just forget I totally murdered these eight folks back here.

For I am Mitchell Greaves, the Intelligent Altruist Cordyceps Man.


	9. Goodbye Blue Sky: In the Beginning

This is the first multi-part story that will be published in this anthology. It should be about three or four parts long. The story parts will not be published in successive order - there likely will be some other non-related ones published in between.

* * *

_**October 11**__**th**__**, 2013**_

_I never did think of myself as the writing type, but hey, what else am I supposed to do to pass the time around here? The internet has been down for weeks, and we're running on reserve power that keeps going on and off, so anything that could put quite a drain on our generator like the DVD player is off limits. Didn't feel like reading anything, either. After all the shit that's happened since September, there's little solace to be found in escapism anymore. _

_Did some shifting around, and found a mostly blank notebook. Tore out all the pages that weren't mine, and found these pens. Got several, just in case one runs out. Don't have much more to say today. There's a strict lights out schedule, and the only people allowed out after that are the watch guys who hang out on the roof. And I'm not one of them tonight. _

_Just hope rescue's coming soon._

_Signing off, Michael* Reed. _

_*Mikey to my buds._

_**October 12**__**th**__**, 2013**_

_Spoke to RP today. He's the unofficial leader here. Responsible and a good leader against the infected, but a headstrong asshat as well. Asked him if we should continue holing up here in the school building. After all, we were bound to run out of supplies eventually if we didn't get a move on. And the area wasn't secure. For every room that we had cleared, there was bound to be another with infected lurking about. _

_Said no. What a surprise. Asked me where the hell we'd go and how'd we do it. Got me there. Suggested cars to drive to one of the Quarantine Zones. Yeah, he said. Good luck trying to find one that hasn't been taken yet or still has enough gas to make the trip to the cities._

_Tone got nicer at the end of our argument. He assured me that if we would hold out, the military would eventually arrive and send us packing to the QZ. Hope they do. Sick of canned food already._

_**October 14**__**th**__**, 2013**_

_Not a lot happened so far today. The same old milling about on the rooftops, looking at the sky to see if the cavalry has flown in yet. Skipped lunch. Wasn't really hungry, and like I said yesterday, sick of canned food. Watchtower duty may be asinine, but hey, at least I'm not on the infected patrol. This school feels like it was designed by a madman. More hiding places than one can shake a stick at. _

_Cloudy skies today. Don't feel good about it. Not a single glimpse of blue sky. To think that less than a month ago, I couldn't give half a rat's ass about what the weather was. But after everything has turned upside down, there's just something reassuring about the warm glow of sunshine. _

_Passed the time listening to some classical music on my smartphone. My ex-wife got me onto this stuff. I don't know what's happened to him. But I do know that this piece of electric shit is going to run out of juice soon. Then I'll only have myself to talk to when passing the time. Or maybe the other people here. _

_Aside from me, there are eight other folks here._

_RP – leader. If he wasn't so damn good at it, I think we would've hung him out as runner bait already. Bastard won't even tell us his full name. _

_Chris – former chem teacher. Knows what everything in the science department can do. Wants to start making some explosive traps for the infected, but RP says no. _

_Stevie – has some medical experience. Think she was in med school before the first infection and somehow wound up stranded here. Egotistical cunt though, thinks she knows everything. Won't be too sad if a runner tears her throat out or worse. _

_Dole – nice guy. Big and strong, can take way more hard luck than me. Brave BAMF, sometimes he charges the infected head-on with just a big stick to save ammo. Muscle of our group. Hope he manages to keep himself alive for a while. Keeps the campfire convos lively. _

_The Smiths. Who the hell are these two? Are they brother and sister? Mother and son? Father and daughter? Husband and wife? Different versions of one person from alternate universes? Mysterious duo… like to keep to themselves, don't bother with the rest of us unless it's fighting off infected or getting food. I'd find out more, but does it matter?_

_Craig – former high school football player. Youngest guy here, and it definitely shows. Keeps whining about how he wants doughnuts. Not putting in his share of the weight. If we hang RP, I definitely nominate this guy to be the next. _

_Laura – the angel of our group. Always putting the collective over the individual. Plucky, optimistic personality. Reminds me of… shit. Reminds me of Jessica. And whenever I write down her name, I look down at my ring finger. Has she kept hers? I wonder. And is Katie safe as well? She was so small the last time I saw her and Jessica has never fired a single gun in her life… what if… Oh god, suddenly I don't feel like writing anymore. _

_**October 17**__**th**__**, 2013**_

_No good news on the radio. Don't know what's worse – the static or the news when we actually pick up a broadcast. _

_Chris did show me something cool today. Smoke bombs, and there's enough crap lying around in the science department's closets to make more than just a fistful. Don't know how well they'll work against the infected though. _

_He promised to see if we have enough to make anything with a bigger boom. Almost asked him about the possibility of opening up our own meth lab, but decided wasn't the best time for pop culture refs._

_**October 25**__**th**__**, 2013**_

_Laura and Dole took me out to the school's track today. Used some dead runners as targets, fired with blanks. I think I'm getting better at hitting them fast and to the point. Started thinking about what was for dinner later. Canned pasta, canned veggies, canned soup, canned crap, yum-yum. Found myself sympathizing with that fucker Craig for a split second. _

_Later, after I had split a can of Linguini-Qs with Dole and joked around a bit about what the President was doing, RP stood up and made a big speech. After cutting out all the bombast, basically someone is going to leave our stronghold and explore the town for supplies to prolong us until the military comes. Real soon._

_He keeps saying they're going to come. But more and more days keep passing. And there's no sign of the cavalry over the hill. Not even a helicopter dropping leaflets with big smiling kitty pics on them telling us not to give up. _

_Maybe that's why Jessica left me and took Katie with her. Maybe I just can't keep up a smile long enough. I could've tried to tell her, to warn her, but I didn't want to. How could I be honest with even my own fucking wife if I could not be honest with myself?_

_**October 31**__**st**__**, 2013**_

_It's Halloween today. No tricks or treats around here, as far as I can tell. Stevie suggested singing the Monster Mash and when RP chewed her out for it, she called him an asshole and ran off to sulk on her own. I actually felt a twinge of sympathy for the bitch. But RP was unrepentant. Says that we have to focus on surviving first. Holidays can come later. _

_**November 10**__**th**__**, 2013**_

_Been a couple of days, a week at least, since I last updated this journal with my thoughts. Continued to spend time watching the skies and horizon, searching for a sign that somebody will come. I think we have managed to clear out all the infected from the immediate area. If we keep this quota up, maybe we will be able to liberate the school. But we need to gas masks first. _

_We all know there are spores in the cafeteria. Craig is convinced that there's bound to still be food we can use there. If it weren't for the one sliver of common sense in his thick skull, I'm sure he would've just rushed in by now. _

_**November 19**__**th**__**, 2013**_

_Ran out of canned pasta today. Looks like I've slurped down my last supermarket-grade spaghetti and meatballs for a long time. Down to just canned veggies and soup now. If we continue to consume our crap at this rate, we literally will be making canned crap to survive. Laura and I brought it up to RP. As usual, he brushed off our concerns. Assured us that most definitely what we currently have will last us until December. If we play smart, until rescue._

_Damn, that bastard. Again with the rescue. When will he open his eyes? It's pretty obvious at this point that it's going to be far longer than he thinks before rescue does arrive! We need to make some major changes if we're going to survive the long haul… the long winter. _

_Hmph, canned food. Even before I was trying to force myself to sleep every night in a fucking school room, before I was trying to drink Jessica and Katie from my memory, I had gotten pretty used to its taste. _

_Don't think there's much about it that deserves to be said. Let's just say I tried to go into business without any actual grasp on how business worked. I spent a long time struggling to find steady work, with Jessica paying out of her ass to keep the family afloat the whole time. I couldn't even afford to eat at the arches if she hadn't taken to wearing the pants. And eventually, I began to do questionable things. No wonder why my dear left one day._

_Don't think I'll have much thanks to give in the coming weeks._

_**December 1**__**st**__**, 2013**_

_The first day of December._

_Twenty-four days until Christmas. It was my mother's favorite holiday. The older I got, the more I noticed that it seemed to be the only day where she was truly happy. It was also the day she died. My father died soon after as well. But it was not from a broken heart. He was a true sob… I try not to think about how either of them went often. _

_If Santa hasn't been infected yet, I think I'll stick up late and try to hitch a ride with him. Maybe jack his sleigh and fly all the way to Vegas or someplace too arid to sustain the cordyceps. Ha-ha. _

_**December 2**__**nd**__**, 2013**_

_Had a nightmare last night. Steak dinner in front of me with a nice bottle of wine and a side of steak fries. Woke up before I could eat it. That counts as a nightmare, right? Felt extremely hungry when I did. Pit of despair growling in my stomach._

_I am really fucking sick of canned food. _

_**December 11**__**th**__**, 2013**_

_Somehow a whole pack of those things made it past the watch. Craig was exercising on the field when they spotted him. And unlike him, those things don't tire. They almost got him. Dumb shit got a whole bunch of blood on him when Mrs. (Ms?) Smith pulled the last of the runners off of him. RP looked like he was considering shooting him and so did Dole, but the shit put up enough of a bawl that he was bitten that we left him alone. _

_Still, I'm going to be watching him a bit more closely._

_I didn't kill a lot. Through the scope of my rifle, I focused on one of the runners. She looked like Jessica… had the exactly same style and hair as here. Even the build was right. But I couldn't tell if the face was her's. The infection had accounted for that. It couldn't have been Jessica. Jessica had told me before I signed the papers that she was planning on going out of state. Going west. To the shining Pacific Coast._

_All doubts put aside, it still took me a while to pull the trigger and blast her head off. _

_Laura asked me if there was anything wrong as we cleaned up the mess. Told her there was nothing wrong. Just the weather taking its toll. _

_We need to get some better clothing. I can feel it already. Winter will be brutal. _

_**December 15**__**th**__**, 2013**_

_Chris had an argument with RP. He stormed out of the school when all was done. RP says that he'll be back, but I'm not sure about that. I think that Chris was the first of us to go. At least before he left he gave me a slip of paper that showed the instructions for making bombs. _

_**December 21**__**st**__**, 2013**_

_We just hit rock bottom on canned soup. One of the generators went bust as well. And I'm kicking a lot more empty gas cans that I was last month. _

_We need to get more shit soon. I can barely sleep now because there's no fucking heating to compensate for the ever dropping temperatures. I think that even RP can see that we need to make an expedition into town now. _

_**December 24**__**th**__**, 2013**_

_Craig tried to get high off of some of the chemicals he found in a chem closet. He's the youngest of us here, so I suppose that he was bound to crack first. Stevie looked over him, but in her snooty as ever tone of voice, she says that there's not much we can do for him. I asked her if that was true, and she told me how should she know? She wasn't a doctor, just a student. _

_Bastard's like a vegetable. He's not moving or speaking. Only stimuli we get was when we hit him, and even then, the signs of life were only fleeting._

_RP mentioned using him as infected bait. I don't think he was joking. RP never gave off the impression as the joking type. _

_What a way to spend Xmas eve._

_**December 25**__**th**__**, 2013**_

_Today is the day. What a Christmas "gift." Someone is going to have to go into town to look for supplies. Just one… RP knows that it's going to be a dangerous fucking mission and he doesn't want to lose a lot of people. _

_He would've sent Craig, since we all hate the kid and wouldn't be too sad if he died out there, but Craig is still out of commission. We put our names onto pieces of paper and put them into Dole's hat. Dole shuffled them around a little bit. Then pulled out a slip of paper._

_That slip of paper was mine. _

_RP wished me good luck. Huh. Bet that bastard didn't enter in his own name. Handed a bunch of supplies. A backpack and a flashlight. A whole bunch of Chris' bombs. They didn't give me a rifle. RP said that the rifles were too vital for defense of the school's perimeter. Saddled me with a small pocketknife and an equally small pistol instead. RP, being the clingy cock he can be, didn't even give me a lot of ammo. _

_Who knows what's in town? None of us have been there since the infection broke out and there was no room on the evacuation choppers for us. I might not make it back. But if I do survive whatever's waiting in town, these shitters (plus Laura and Dole) better not run off on me before I return._

_I'm bringing this journal with me, but who knows how much chances I'll get to update it. Just in case - to Katie if they're out there, alive and scared. Don't worry. Daddy's scared too. Tell your mother, lovely-to-the-end Jess, that I'll love both of you to the end even with our separate ways and that I am sorry.  
_

_Well, that was cornier than I hoped it would come out. But hey. Like I said, I might not get the chance to say it in the future. _


End file.
